


Iokheaira

by CourierNinetyTwo, QuickYoke



Series: Seelie AU [3]
Category: RWBY
Genre: F/F, F/M, Multi, Seelie AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-03-16 13:50:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 24,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13637544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CourierNinetyTwo/pseuds/CourierNinetyTwo, https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuickYoke/pseuds/QuickYoke
Summary: Before Cinder rose to the Autumn throne, Raven carved the way for her ambitions. [Direct sequel to Akrasia. All character death is canonical to the show.]





	1. Chapter 1

iokheaira (Gr. _ἰοχέαιρα)_ \- An epithet for Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt, meaning “delighting in arrows” or “arrow-pourer.” In rarer circumstances, a reference to serpents meaning “poison-shedding.”

 

\--

The Wild Hunt had been chasing Salem for weeks.

Corrupted magic may have scoured her from within, leaving behind a twisting, pitted husk of a creature, but the Unseelie's subtlety was not shorn away with her skin. Her exile from the Autumn Court spurred an even more monstrous transformation, blackened veins overwhelming bone-bleached flesh, twisting limb and skull alike into an unrecognizable beast. Like all those lost to Grimm, Salem was hollow and forever hungry, envenomed by a thirst that could never be slaked. It glowed between the slash of her ribs, the concave chamber of each eye long since-devoured, and the brutal split between them pulsing with a light the color of spilled viscera.

Yet even at Winter's edge, she was difficult to find. Endless walls of leafless trees separated the Court itself from the rest of the world in ring after wooden ring, broken only by an eternal rime of hoarfrost, planes of ice and snow born anew with every grey, shattered sunrise. The cold cut to any traveler's marrow, and even with a native steed underneath her, Raven could scarcely flex her fingers without the reins rubbing them raw, and earning a protest from the horse to boot.

"The blood's stopped," Qrow muttered at Raven's right, one gauntleted hand curled around an ashen flask, "We won't find her until she kills again."

She agreed, but held her tongue with Caller Aricina riding only a few paces ahead. They were the only ones chosen to escort their leader on this hunt, with scattered packs of other riders sent ahead to the farthest reaches of Spring, intent on cutting off Salem's last avenue of escape. The youngest were left to carry messages between the courts, far too inexperienced to face prey such as this and survive to tell the tale.

"There's nothing out here to kill," Raven finally replied, red eyes sweeping across the barren frontier; even birds and burrowing things couldn't survive this wasteland, pierced through by the chill like ten thousand spears, "Nothing except for us."

A branch twitched at the corner of her vision.

From within a nest of stygian brambles, a rack of sable antlers arose, Salem's crimson gaze folding open along petal-sharp lines and glowing bright enough to reveal an endless gaping maw underneath. Claws shot outward with a snap of dry wood, and Raven only had a breath to draw her sword before they seized around two of her horse's legs, its eight-hoof beat torn asunder into a high-pitched scream of terror.

"Raven!" Qrow shouted, but the cry was distant as adrenaline took its hold, her steed dragged off-balance and toppling against the snow.

The meaty tear that followed took those crushed legs with it, leaving Raven pinned under the thrashing horse's weight, trying to kick her boots out of the stirrups until she finally sliced through the tack -- and through her mount's spine. Such a quick impalement was a mercy, and with fresh blood coating her blade, that was the only thought she could spare towards the winter-born mare.

Salem reached out with another bend of claws to seize what remained, shredding flesh and bone before scattering it to the trees. There was no reason to eat what she killed; magic was the only source of succor for an Unseelie, but chaos and fear were easy seeds to sow, and their blossoms were almost as potent as a faerie's soul when stripped out and devoured. Yet the gory display was enough of a distraction for Qrow and Aricina to abandon their own horses, scythe and bow brought to bear with the gleam of steel.

"Stand fast!" Aricina snapped, the command in her voice booming across the plain as she fired a volley of arrows, each one landing with an empty thunk into Salem's chest. There was nothing left inside the Unseelie, only an enraged shell working its final will upon the world. "Qrow, sever its legs. This chase is over."

Raven took that as a signal to play bait, and she stood to meet Salem head-on, watching her twitch and hiss as the arrowheads burned deep. The pain would be temporary at best, and an irritated scrape of talons broke every shaft, ripping a few of the missiles completely out. When the Unseelie crouched low, body bent at a dozen impossible angles, a faint sense of nausea pulled at the pit of Raven's stomach. It was a primal and implacable fear, to see how far another could sink and yet not die.

She knew it well enough, though; one did not have to be an Unseelie to fall from grace.

Salem's first swipe nearly tore the blade from Raven's hands, but she wrenched back against that viscous grip, flesh sticking like tar. It couldn't be cut, not when it would melt around any weapon and reform, consuming whatever was drawn in deep. With a twist of the pommel, red Dust flared up the line of her sword, exploding outward in a gout of flame and running up the line of Salem's arm like the Unseelie's body was oil and tinder. The grasp around her blade cracked and convulsed, a rattling roar of agony ripped out of rotten lungs.

Qrow dropped from the trees behind in silence, but with Salem bent over herself, there was no easy way to sever tendon from bone. If there was anything to the Branwen name, though, it was stubbornness, so rather than hamstring their quarry, he brought down the scythe in one clean cleave, hooking right in the bone of Salem's hip. Her size made it impossible to draw the blade entirely through, but that didn't stop Qrow from digging his boots into the ice and pulling with all his strength, splitting warped muscle fiber by fiber.

"Aricina, take her head!" Raven yelled, shaking befouled shards of flesh from her sword.

The next arrow the Caller drew had a head of polished stone, dark as the beast that loomed over them. She reached for the poison in the pouch at her hip, and Salem lunged with unnatural force. It was such a sudden leap that Qrow slipped against the ice, knocked right on his back as the scythe was torn free, and Raven was slammed so hard into the earth by the Unseelie's hands that she felt ribs crack in the echo of the impact. Dazed with pain, she watched Salem's body leap over hers like a distant shadow, angled with the sharp and lethal intent as a javelin.

She heard the arrow fly, an almost gentle whisper against the beat of blood inside her head, but before it landed, there was a wet, gore-drenched gasp. Driving her sword into the snow for balance, Raven managed to turn just enough to see Aricina hanging from Salem's claws. One had punctured straight through the Caller's heart, another pierced up through her throat and into her skull, and the rest were curled into Aricina's back, driving deep past spine and gut. Death throes provoked a twitch from head to toe, but with the mask of bone concealing her features, Raven could almost pretend that the other faerie was at peace, that the pain had been brief.

"Poison." For a second it was the only syllable she could form, forced out of her chest loud enough for Qrow to hear. "We need the thrice-cursed poison."

A vial landed inches from her hand; his throw was poor, but from the spitting curse that followed, one of Qrow's shoulders was dislocated, if her brother's collarbone hadn't been shattered entirely. "What if it's not enough?"

"I'll make it enough," Raven declared, waves of agony blotting out the edge of her vision to a blur of white as she stood, vial in one hand and sword in the other.

Salem feasted without fear, and with every piece of flesh she swallowed, her wounds began to heal shut, the raw magic of another faerie pouring into a broken vessel. Yet when her jaw snapped shut around Aricina's hip, the Unseelie reared back with a blood-curdling scream, the poison there soaking through the pouch and into Salem's mouth. Raven couldn't help but smile, cracking the vial in her hands over the blade and watching it spill down rust-stained metal.

"That's what you get for being greedy." She bit back a wince as Salem threw Aricina's remains to the ground like waste, thrashing if it would cleanse the poison from her tongue. "And you're still hungry, aren't you?"

Every step Raven took was slow and measured across the snow, blade held out low from one side. Salem turned to face her, standing at her full inhuman height, antlers flecked with dripping red. There was no recognition behind that eldritch stare, no shared sense of kin or kind, only a starving void, gluttony and famine made an indivisible pair. She had a daughter, a husband, an ancient bloodline that stretched back to the first Autumn sovereign, all cast aside for ravenous need.

Raven didn't care, not even enough to summon a phantom of sympathy. Those who joined the Wild Hunt knew death lurked around every corner, that neutrality left every member without a single Court's protection, be it from exile, choice, or birth. Their life was pursuit, in chase of endless quarry, carrying messages from one end of the world to the other, capturing the rare faeries born to mortal names. They held no titles, no rank, no inheritance -- save for the Caller.

"Aricina had a thousand years in her left, by my reckoning." Poison slicked the very tip of Raven's blade as Salem approached her with the deliberate sway of a predator, but she knew better; the antlers that curved from the Unseelie's skull were a sign of prey. "I hope you rot that long, if nothing else."

Salem made to strike again, but Raven leapt higher, using every last ounce of strength left in her body to swing her sword like an executioner's axe. In the moment their bodies clashed, the poison ate through Unseelie flesh like acid, severing head from neck with the weight of steel carrying through. Massive claws curled around Raven's body like a cage, but before they could close and pierce their captive, Salem sagged and collapsed to the ground. Spoiled sludge poured from where she was cleaved open, corruption melting through the snow in a desperate rush to claim a new host.

Pushing aside the claws like wayward branches, Raven stepped away from the mess that ensued, watching as Salem's body turned on itself, draining the life and magic out of the only source it had left. Desiccation and decomposition warred against one another until there was nothing left but a shell of ash stretched across the snow like a ghost. When wind whipped across the snowy plain, it carried her away in its wake, leaving behind nothing but a strange-looking charm.

Raven used the edge of her sword to pry it from the snow, spying polished links of gold woven together with feathers of black glass looped between the chain. She carefully transferred the bracelet into her gloved hand, looking for any sign of decay, but it merely seemed to be part of a matched set absent its twin.

"What do you have there?" Qrow's voice came from behind her, but Raven waited until he stopped by her side to strain and look at him. His shoulder must have been wrenched back into place, but he looked half-dead anyway, carrying his scythe in one hand and Aricina's mask in the other.

"A trophy." Raven remarked, although the gallows humor didn't lift the pressure now crushing its way through her chest. "Maybe I should give it to the girl she left behind."

"As if she'd want to see _your_ face." He cracked a smile, baring teeth stained red before the moment of mirth faded. "You know, one of us has to take this."

Qrow held up the mask, his fingers hooked around the first cusp of bone. It had always looked like a pair of bird's wings to Raven's eye, each skeletal layer flaring outward, yet wholly joined to itself. The red paint marking it was in dire need of repair, but the helmet beneath had survived untold generations, passed through the Wild Hunt with each death of the wearer.

She raised a brow. "You must mean me, because it doesn't sound like you're volunteering."

"Considering you just killed what killed her, only seems right." It looked like Qrow bit his tongue; there wasn't even enough left of Aricina to bury. "We're all going to die anyway. Might as well wear the crown while it's there."

Neither one of them was fit for a crown, but that had been true since the beginning. After pocketing the charm, Raven took the mask and brought it over her head, ignoring the scent of blood that lingered on the inside. It wound its way through her senses, sharpening all but the pain that radiated through her ribs.

Through a veil of bone, everything looked like prey.

\--

Clouds gathered overhead, casting the sky an ocean-grey. The creak of branches and the rustle of dried leaves folded along the barren earth like waves of russet gold, bare-faced trees offering little respite from the wind and prying eyes alike. From her place atop the grasping boughs, Raven watched the road. Roots at the tree’s base gripped the dry ground, gnarled with age. Winter would creep across the lands soon, but not soon enough for Raven’s liking. Or anyone’s liking, for that matter.

Upon a lower branch, Qrow shifted his weight and muttered. “Should’ve waited to do this later.”

“Shh!” Raven hushed him, not tearing her gaze from the road.

“You know I’m right,” Qrow grumbled. “She’s already strong. What do you think she’s going to be like in the height of Autumn?”

Shooting him a reprimanding glare, Raven said nothing in reply. He warded her glower off with a shrug. She turned her attention back to the road, trying and failing to shake the growing unease that curdled her stomach. He was right, of course. She hated when he was right, but they could not afford to wait any longer. They had to act now, with swift and absolute precision.

Raven checked that her hide gloves were secured up to her elbows. As she was tightening one of the straps, an icy breeze cut the air with the scent of rot. Her head jerked, and she looked around. Below, she could hear Qrow do the same, every movement hailed by a corresponding groan of branch underfoot.

“She’s here,” Raven said.

Reaching to her hip where the aged bone mask was slung, she drew it over her face, shielding her head like a helm. Then, she made a sharp gesture with her closed fist towards the surrounding trees. Myriad dark figures hidden in the woods answered with silence, moving into position at her command. Even Qrow went quiet now, drawing his scythe from behind his back and running nervous fingers along the silver-grained wood. With bated breath, their hunting party waited.

Slowly, a lone, hooded figure crested on the horizon. The horse that carried her plodded along the road with weary, skittish steps. Every so often, it would balk beneath her touch, but the rider tightened her grip on the reins, squeezing her knees, and the animal would quieten with a toss of its maned head. Flecks of rain scattered from the heavens, followed by a distant roll of thunder. On and on, the figure rode, her path carrying her closer to the treeline that ran parallel to the road, where Raven and her Hunters crouched in wait.

At the very edge of the treeline, the figure pulled back on the reins, bringing her horse to a stop. Here, at this distance, Raven could see that the mount was not -- in fact -- a horse, but one of the fanged beasts favoured by the Autumn Court, its scaly back glinting beneath a splatter of fresh rainfall. It stamped its cloven hooves and flicked its ridged ears. Atop the beast, their quarry lifted her head as if scenting the air, and beneath the shadow cast by the hood, Raven could see a pair of burnished eyes shining through the rain-threaded air, sickly-bright as if with fever.

Carefully, Raven notched an arrow, pulling the fletched end back to her cheek and holding it there as she controlled her breathing. The barbed obsidian arrowhead had been shorn to a narrow sliver of dark glass, and coated in the thrice-cursed poison deadly only to Unseelie. The rain grew thick and fast with every breath, crowding Raven’s vision in pale sheets. As she exhaled, she shot, and the arrow sprang from her bow.

It found its mark with a dull thud, and the figure’s body rocked back in her saddle at the force of the blow. The hood dropped to reveal Amber’s youthful face -- no more than a girl, in truth -- screwed up in pain and fury. Tearing the arrow free from her chest, Amber flung it to the ground and wheeled her mount about, kicking it into a gallop. Before she could get far, four of Raven’s Hunters leapt from their places onto the road, blocking her retreat. They raised their bows and fired.

The first two arrows sank deep into Amber’s stomach. The next, her shoulder. The last, just below her collarbone. A rictus snarl twisted her face, and she screamed, a savage wail that climbed in pitch until the treetops rang with it. Swinging down from her branch, Raven landed on the ground with a grunt, absorbing the impact and dashing forward.

Amber urged her mount away from the Hunters and further along the road. Blood pooled beneath the gilded jerkin, seeping into the rich cloak until the fabric was heavy and saturated, but still she did not slow. Her eyes burned with a crimson light that bled into the surrounding skin, striking dark veins beneath the surface. At the scent of fetid blood growing stronger, the mount reared back, bucking wildly until Amber fell from its saddle.

The beast raced past, and Raven let it go. Her gaze was fixed upon Amber, who struggled to push herself up. Mud splashed across her body, mingling with her wounds. The corruption had begun to spread across her limbs, bleaching her flesh; the deeper the poison ran through her system, the more the Grimm hunger answered in kind. Amber clutched at the arrows, yanking another free with a snarl and hurling it at Raven’s feet.

Raven could hear Qrow step into place just behind her, catching the shadow of his scythe dimly outlined upon the ground. His footsteps squelched. Handing over her bow to him, Raven drew the long skinning knife from its sheath at the small of her back. The ivory-handled blade gleamed with an edge of cold iron that seared at Raven’s skin even through her thick hide gloves. Qrow eyed the weapon warily, leaning away from it.

As Raven approached, Amber scrambled to a crouch on all fours. Movements quick and fluid, Raven struck, aiming for her heart. Amber caught the blade with her bare hand, the cold hard iron seething at the touch of a fae, but doing no harm to an Ironblooded. Amber bared her blood-slicked teeth in a grin of vicious delight. Using her free hand, she backhanded Raven, the blow delivered with a crack like that of a whip, sending a narrow fracture through the bone helm. Reeling, Raven clung to the iron knife as Amber bore down upon her, the two struggling over the blade.

An arrow took Amber through the ribs. And another. And another. She howled, grappling through the pain, even as a spasm tore through her. The rot began to spread, creeping across the whole of her face in a grisly transformation. Her hands twisted into black-tipped claws. Her cheeks hollowed to bone-white caverns. Her eyes shone like scarlet lanterns through the gloom.

Raised voices and panicked shouts over the crash of thunder overhead, tongues of lightning forking across the sky. All noise was drowned out by the furious beating of Raven’s heart, the harsh rasp of her breathing, the snap of Amber’s teeth, and the mortal hiss of iron between them.

Qrow’s scythe hacked through Amber’s shoulder, its tip burrowing into the ground beside Raven’s head. With a grunt, Raven turned the blade over and thrust up, directly into Amber’s heart.

Amber’s body wrenched to a shivering halt. The light dwindled in her eyes, the next breath her last. Kicking at the body, Raven rolled out from beneath her and into a crouch. She breathed heavily, the mask stifling even as the cold rain gripped her to the marrow. Slops of Amber’s blood painted Raven’s worn hide armour. All around her, Qrow and the other Hunters stood, hands still gripping their weapons, aimed at Amber’s lifeless body as if afraid the Ironblooded would rise up from the clutches of death itself.  

Allowing herself only a moment to catch her breath, Raven panted, “It’s done.”

Qrow offered his hand, but Raven waved him away. Her palms ached with fresh blisters from such close proximity to cold iron. She would need to wrap them in gauze for a week before she could hold her sword properly once more. Ignoring the pain, she reached out to tear her knife free of Amber’s heart. Carefully cleaning the blade on an unsoiled edge of Amber’s cloak, Raven sheathed it once more. When she looked up, the other Hunters were staring at her. She must have looked a sight.

“Clear the area,” Raven ordered, sounding brusque and harsh to her own ears. “I want us back at the Summer border by nightfall. We have other business to take care of.”

The three Hunters bowed their heads and began to stride off as commanded. Raven waited until they had taken a few steps before releasing a trembling breath and shaking her head. “That was too close.”

“Yeah,” Qrow drawled. “That could have gone better.”

Sweat stippled Raven’s brow beneath her mask, slicking the hair at her temples. “We did what we came here to do. All that matters now is ensuring the Wild Hunt’s involvement remains unknown and impartial.”

“A bloodthirsty Autumn Court waiting to take credit for the deed certainly doesn’t hurt,” Qrow added to the side, his tone bitter and wry.

Pushing at her knees, Raven stood. When she spoke she raised her voice somewhat so that those other members of the Hunt could hear. “Corruption is the Hunt’s prerogative. The Courts are none of our concern.”

Qrow rolled his eyes in reply. “Oh, sure. And if you just so happen to do their dirty work along the way, all’s the better.”

Behind the mask, Raven’s eyes flashed, and she rounded on him. “If I had wanted to kill the King's daughter before his own Court in royal assembly, I would have had every right!”

With a laugh, Qrow shook his head, hands on hips, his enormous scythe slung across his back. “See -- that’s just your problem. With you, it’s always the word of the law, never the spirit.”

Raven scoffed. She rested her hand upon the pommel of her sword at her hip. “The spirit of the law is for humans and philosophers. It means nothing, and you know it.”

“I’m not talking about-!” Qrow took a step towards her, before cutting himself off with a growl. “Think -- for once in your life! -- _think_ about the consequences of your actions! And-! No, let me finish!” he snapped when she opened her mouth in sharp retort. “In the name of neutrality, you have just killed the Heir to Autumn’s throne! You have stoked the fires of ambition in Ambrose’s Court by giving them this opportunity! They revel in conflict! They will fight amongst themselves, and from the battle something far greater will emerge.”

Raven’s sneer was hidden behind her mask. “Careful, Qrow. There are lines we cannot cross. You always were too inclined to our Spring blood.”

“And you have too much Autumn in you from our twice-cursed mother.” He gestured to the body weltering at Raven’s feet. “Whenever the hunt calls, you can't help but follow.”

Bristling, Raven lowered her voice to a deadly hiss. “What would you have had me do?” she forced her hand to unclench around the hilt of her sword. “Wait? Let the Autumn Heir -- the Ironblooded, no less! -- fully succumb to the Unseelie blight, and ascend the throne? Is your memory so short-lived? Have you already forgotten what happened the last time?”

Qrow’s jaw set in a bullish slant as he grit his teeth and balled his hands into fists. “I remember.”

Still, she continued. “The entire Summer Court, fallen alongside their Queen, turned into a black and wretched hive that threatened to spread their disease through every season! It took three Kings fighting side-by-side to destroy her!”

“I said: _I remember,”_ Qrow growled.

For a moment, they glowered at one another, until Raven shook her head and turned away, glancing down at Amber’s broken body. The other Hunters, the elite few Raven had hand-picked for this mission, watched and listened in silence as they cleaned their weapons and prepared their ride for Summer’s border.

With a sigh, Raven reached up and removed the mask. Her fingers left streaks across the weathered bone plates, a handprint grim and unyielding. “If anything,” she said, “this is a comfort.”

Qrow stared at her, aghast. _“What?”_

Blackened blood dripped from the line of Amber’s collarbone, staining the earth, mixing the leaves an ink-dark hue. As the rigour began to sit in, she grew more statuesque. Like a figure hewn from marble by the barbed edges of arrowheads. A messy kill. A difficult kill. A necessary kill.

“First, a Summer Queen gone mad with rot, slain by the Winter King himself in a war to end all wars,” Raven murmured. “Now, the Autumn Heir falls to corruption, and so to our blades. The cycle continues. If it’s cyclical, we can track it And if we can track it, we can stop the spread."

A breeze lifted the scent of decay from Amber’s corpse. Soon, her body would drain itself as the hollowness inside shed her carcass like a second skin, seeking to slake its hunger for magic elsewhere.

Crinkling his nose, Qrow took a step back. “You and I have very different ideas of comfort.” He waved at the corpse as if trying to wave away the stench. “How do we even know the cycle will go on? You and I both know these things tend to sink south when you least expect it.”

“The way of the Fae is the way of the seasons,” Raven answered. She hid her own grimace by turning her face away -- with those words in her mouth, she sounded too much like their father.

“Not for us,” Qrow countered.

At that, Raven paused, holding the mask between her hands. The Hunt, the casteless, the nameless, forsaken of the Courts, those who walk between worlds, those who slay transgressors from the path of nature by removing themselves from the cycle, entire.

“No,” Raven agreed after a moment, her voice slow and thoughtful. “Not for us.”

\--

On the third morning of the third day, frost tinged the bare black boughs, and the earth slicked underfoot. Dead leaves carpeted the ground, wet and rotting, sticking to the soles of boots with every step. The air hung thick and heavy with fog, and not a breath of wind stirred even the highest treetops. It dampened sound -- every rustle of wildlife, every meek bird’s call, every impatient stamp of their horse’s hooves.

The two Wild Hunt members Raven had brought with her --  officers of just sufficient rank for this level of ceremony -- stood well behind her, putting enough distance between their superior in order to bow their heads together and murmur.

Beside her, Cythera Adel frowned over her shoulder at them. Leaning towards Raven, she said in a low tone, “I know that toeing the line of strict formality is incredibly gauche,” she began, her words misting in the air before her mouth, “and I know that this is your first Venery Rite as Caller, but protocol dictates we really ought to maintain our vigil in absolute silence.”

Arms crossed, Raven glanced at Cythera, her bored expression and raised eyebrow hidden behind the bone mask. She spoke loud enough that her voice would carry to her officers, “And at my side should be Autumn’s Grand Master of the Hunt, yet here you stand.”

The officers grinned at one another, and Cythera’s cheeks bloomed with pink, though she bore the underhanded slight to her station well. With a haughty lift of her chin and squaring of her shoulders, she said, “The Grand Master’s poor health has demanded a breach in convention. Rest assured, Caller Branwen, my Inheritance alone is suitable enough for the task.”

“Raven.”

Cythera blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“My name is Raven. I prefer you use it,” Raven returned to studying the fog-pierced woods. “In my realm, we forsake our titles and realise them for what they are: hollow.”

At that, Cythera shot her an arch and pointed look. “Must be easy to say for the one who holds the highest title in her realm, as it were.”

Only silence answered. Raven gripped her forearms and refused to take the bait, staunchly glaring through the mist. After a few long minutes, her officers struck up their low-toned conversation once more, going so far as to slouch irreverently against the trunks of nearby trees while they all waited. At one point, the underbrush whispered with movement, and Cythera straightened, all but rising up on her toes in anticipation, only for a dull-colored nightingale to dart from the branches in a flutter and dip of wings.

From beneath the ridged slits in her mask, Raven watched Cythera deflate somewhat. “I assume you know the aspirant?”

“Yes.” Cythera smoothed her hands down the front of her well-tailored scarlet doublet, threaded with gold. Darker hues would have better suited her, but Venery tradition demanded blood-bright cloth. “She should have been back by now. If she doesn’t make it by sundown -”

She clamped her mouth shut and did not finish the sentence. Candidates for the Venery were stripped of weapons and given three days to hunt with nothing but their wits to arm them. Those that did not return with a prize in that time were shamed and barred entry. Most dragged back any prey they could get their hands on -- a sickly doe, a meagre hare. So long as it bled, anything would do. Legend spoke of a past King who carried back a hand-gutted timberwolf in his arms, and made his kill into a pelt that still adorned the seat of Autumn’s throne.

If it was idle consolation Cythera wanted however, she had come to the wrong person.

“If she doesn’t make it, she’s mine,” Raven said, her voice hard and caustic as iron. “Your friend has chosen this path, and now the Hunt will have her regardless.”

Cythera snorted, a surprisingly graceless sound. “She is not my friend.”

Rolling her eyes, Raven countered with a wave of her hand, “Allies. Rivals. Lovers. What have you. I care nothing for Court politics.”

“Such a shame,” Cythera replied in a dry tone. “Here I thought you and I were growing thick as thieves.”

A grin tugged at the corners of Raven’s mouth in spite of herself. “I doubt I would make a good addition to your soirees. Civilization has as much use for me as I do for it.”

“Heavens, no!” Cythera laid a hand over her chest in mock outrage. “Decorum does not become you, Raven Branwen. Though I do find something of the gallant in your bearing -- in a delightfully gritty sort of way.” She turned to Raven and tapped at her chin, narrowing her eyes as she comb over Raven’s appearance. “Have you ever considered trading hide for velvet? Burgundy would do wonders for your complexion.”

Raven huffed with laughter. The last time anyone outside the Wild Hunt had dared engage her in such frank conversation, she’d been exchanging council between Sovereigns. “I’d rather -”

Twigs snapped, followed by the squelch of sodden leaves. The officers straightened, and both Raven and Cythera jerked their heads around to see who approached. As the late morning dragged on, shafts of watery sunlight threaded through air. Now, a bulky shadow darkened the treeline. The figure approached with slow shambling steps, looming through a swirl of fog. Instinctively, Raven stepped in front of Cythera, gripping the hilt of her sword, prepared to draw it at a moment’s notice. Dimly, she felt fingers at her wrist as Cythera stilled her hand, and the fae they had been waiting for stumbled into the wooded clearing.

Mud splattered to her knees. It blackened her boots and trousers. Dark hair curled down one side of her neck in a wild tangle, sticking with sweat to her brow. Her clothes -- more sturdy than fine -- were worn, ripped, gashes flecked with grime and perspiration. Breathing heavily with exertion, she staggered beneath the weight of her kill, yet her eyes burned through the mist, twin points of gold in a blacksmith’s crucible.

Raven’s eyes widened, and beside her she heard Cythera draw a sharp breath. A sixteen point monarch stag was slung across the fae’s shoulders, bearing a crown of antlers fit for a king. Great rents were clawed from its shoulder and throat, blood dripping down the back of the fae’s neck; a wide swathe of it dyed the lower half of her face with gore, smeared across her throat and hands. When she stumbled, Cythera made an abortive motion to dart forward, but Raven held out an arm.

“She must come to me on her own,” Raven said. “Every step of the way.”

As if she had heard the challenge, the fae’s gaze flashed. She pulled the hart more firmly around her shoulders, its cloven hind legs dragging along the ground behind her so that she appeared herself wreathed in a feral crown of antlers. Watching her approach, Raven could not force her fingers to unclench around the hilt of her blade. Her gauntlets creaked as she gripped her sword all the tighter, unable to shrug the feeling of unease that made her hackles rise -- blood poured over blood, the scent of a fresh kill, and two predators glaring at each other across an open clearing.

Dropping to her knees, the fae shrugged the stag to the ground in order to lay it at Raven’s feet. For a moment she remained there, gathering her strength before using the stag’s antlers to push herself upright once more. The two stood close enough that Raven could cleave a sword through her heart without a second thought. Releasing a long, suppressed breath, Raven finally uncurled her fist from her sword, but her stance remained tense, on edge. Defiance reigned in the fae’s eyes, and for a brief moment Raven felt unmasked before her.

When Raven spoke, her words were hoarse and harsh. “Who has come before the Caller to prove their skill in the hunt?”

Even soiled with mud and sweat, panting for breath and smeared with blood that dried in the cool autumnal air, the fae seemed more in her element than ever. “Cinder Fall.”

Raven cocked her head. _‘Fall’ --_ a title reserved for those in Autumn with no claim to a bloodline. “You have no Name?”

Cinder did not move, but the air sparked with some unseen energy, a spike in heat that flushed the air with a shiver of fire. As if sensing the hostility between them, Cythera tried to intervene with a clearing of her throat. “Why, just a moment ago you were lecturing me on the inanity of titles!”

The black hollows of Raven’s mask seared red. When she swung her head around, Cythera lowered her gaze, and took a shaking step back. As Raven turned her attention back to Cinder, it was to find Cinder watching with a fierce brand of amusement. Behind her helm-like mask, Raven bared her teeth, only to realise Cinder could not see the gesture. Opening her mouth to continue the ritual, Raven paused.

Cinder had reached up to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear, and as she did so, something gleamed darkly at her wrist. A delicate gold chain, stringing together a collection of ink-black feathers forged from glass. A long lost companion to another piece Raven kept stowed away, just another one of her many trophies -- until now.

In a smooth motion, Raven stepped over the stag, moving close and lowering her voice. “It would seem I know you after all.”

Cinder’s brow furrowed in confusion, but she made no move to either cower or retreat. “I find it unlikely that a Nameless courtier should come to the attention of the Wild Hunt.”

Dipping her fingers into a pouch strung along the belt at her waist, Raven retrieved the chain’s twin and held it up for Cinder to see.

Amber eyes widened. Cinder’s hand darted up to snatch the trinket from Raven’s grasp, but she pulled her own hand back with a finger raised in warning. Lip curling in a snarl, Cinder hissed, “That belongs to me.”

“Is that so?” Raven cocked her head. “The way I see it, a prey’s trophy belongs to no one but the hunter.”

Cinder’s face went through a range of emotions, shifting from dawning horror, to sorrow, to flinty resolve, then settling on an ardent fury.

Raven hummed a contemplative note at the back of her throat. “Ah, yes. I can see the resemblance, now.”

Drawing a deep breath, Cinder straightened her shoulders before unexpectedly stepping back into a perfect bow. “Caller of the Wild Hunt, I offer you this kill as proof of my talents, that I might stand in the eyes of my King and be found worthy.”

Raven blinked. From the side, Cythera and the two officers waited for her decision. Cinder remained hunched in a show of obeisance, but her face was tilted up just enough to meet Raven’s eyes in a challenging molten stare. Tightening her hand around the gold links, Raven could feel one of the glass feathers dig into the soft underside of her palm, sending a narrow crack racing through its delicately carved face. The regal stag continued to bleed along the ground, a sluggish drip of time-darkened blood from its mouth and neck.

Lowering her fist to her side, Raven announced for all to hear, “We stand witness to your kill. Go now to the ranks of your King’s chosen Venery, and serve him well.” She held Cinder’s gaze. “Never forget: you call yourself Huntress, but the Hunt is mine. It is a gift that can always be taken away.”

\--

Raven felt ill with the birth of every spring.

It was her own court by lineage, but the moment verdant green pierced through softly melting snow, summoning life from the dark earth underneath, an itch she couldn't scratch slipped beneath her skin. Ghostly teeth chewed at Raven's nerves, wearing them thin and raw with every petal's bloom, calling her _home_. Centuries serving the Wild Hunt had done little to quiet the feeling, and those who rode beside her throughout the season braced themselves for the sharpest edge of an already abrasive temper.

Being near Spring lands was frustrating enough, but it was the eve of Beltane, and Raven let out a bone-hollow laugh when the caller's sigil flared to life on the inside of her gauntlet. She was half-tempted to deny the summons until the brand of Glynda Goodwitch took shape in the ritual flame, a noble crown that only Ozpin's favored could carry.

The itch quickened in Raven's flesh, lapping like a barbed tongue up the length of her spine. This far from the blossoming gates, only a few scant notes carried the intoxicating song of Beltane, high and breathy as a lover's sigh, but any who approached would be drenched in desire. Those who came to Spring by nature suffered twice-over, the peak of the season whipping their blood into greens and golds, seeking another's skin to quench the ceaseless fire within.

"Fuck off, Goodwitch," Raven spit the words just for the pleasure of uttering them, donning her mask with practiced hands.

Concealing her face would make it that much easier to deny any who looked her way. At least, that was the hope.

She cut a portal open with one heavy pull of her blade, parting the air itself and baring the lush entrance of the Spring Court. Vines coiled and twisted at Raven's approach, reaching out like hands to drape soft leaves across her clothes, tender as any caress. The gate swung open soundlessly, but the heat that poured from within unfurled like a fog, soaking past Raven's armor within seconds. Pressure sunk in from every side, a sweet and fertile perfume invading her senses with each staggered breath, making her throat spark and tighten around the scent.

A tremble wound its way through Raven's fingers as she sheathed her sword, gripping the hilt tight enough to make her wrist ache. Sweat made her clothes stick with every forced step towards the Grand Seneschal's quarters, the red swathed around her body nearly dyed black. Honey and bile warred on the back of Raven's tongue, every flower she passed kissing pollen into the air, but the familiarity was like a newly honed blade against a scar, the threat of dragging steel threatening to spill blood anew.

The message; she just needed to carry the message.

Hours before the public celebration, the path was mercifully clear, save for one faerie lounging on the wooden bridge that divided the palace from the winding maze of the court. Half-lidded eyes flickered Raven's way, the sky blue of her irises swallowed by a dark cloud of lust. She was a pretty thing, limbs lithe with youth's blessing, the short sleeves of her tunic exposing warm olive skin that drank in every drop of sun. Cropped black hair left the girl's throat open to the air, and Raven's jaw clenched behind her mask, doing her best not to imagine how smooth and soft she would feel between her teeth.

It was all she could do to keep walking, and Raven made it halfway across the bridge before light footsteps landed on the swollen wood planks beneath.

"Wild Hunt, are you?" Her voice was sing-song, ripe with interest. "If you don't know the customs here, I would be happy to show you the lay of the land."

Laughter trapped itself low in Raven's lungs; she was ten times the maiden's age, and knew the deepest weaves of the Spring Court, every labyrinth and sprawling root like it was the back of her hand. "I'm not who you want, little sapling. Your first Beltane should be gentle."

"Who says that it's my first?" The girl was riled now, and hastened her step so she could dart in front of Raven, walking backwards across the bridge like it was no trouble at all. "I won't run if you bare your teeth, stranger."

The hint of amusement Raven took from the exchange twisted into a darker hunger, and she shuddered with it. Swift as a shadow, she pinned the other faerie to the side of the bridge, nearly bowing her over the rail that guarded the edge. Her mask was a mere centimeter from the girl's face, close enough for the next shocked, ragged breath to warm the outline of painted bone.

"Tell me your name," Raven growled.

"V-Vernal," she choked back, fear outpacing the need in her veins as the strength pinning her in place became apparent.

"Vernal," Raven repeated, rolling the name over her tongue like a bite of fresh meat, "Go find some beautiful girl who looks at you like the sun and stars. Come near me again and I'll eat you to the marrow."

When the last word left her lips, she shattered the line of their bodies with a rough shove, eyes narrowed to slits that matched the countenance of her mask. Raven held her stare until Vernal gave a frightened nod in return, and she ignored the smug thrill of pleasure sweeping through her from head to toe, breaking their gaze to continue across the bridge. With every step, Raven's body grew heavier, an ache building up the length of her thighs, and for a moment all she could imagine was a pair of hands spreading them wide.

Her lower lip was in bloodied tatters by the time she reached Glynda's door, and Raven shoved it open without any fanfare, determined to get this over with as fast as she could. She regretted her haste the moment their eyes locked.

Royal blood called like no other, euphoric with power. It poured thick as honey past Raven's lips, but no matter how much she swallowed against that sudden surge of need, her throat was dry, scratched at by thorns from within. She yearned to drink deep of the color before her, the flash of opulent green behind crystal lenses, the gleam of gold that crowned Glynda's head and curled around her neck, all attempts at restraint undone by oppressive, lingering heat. That pale skin would mark with luxurious shades of pink and red, dappled across one another like a garden of roses.

They were trapped together a moment longer, a burst of energy forcing a sprout from the polished barrel of Glynda's pen. Caged in by walls on all sides, Raven wanted to rip the mask from her face, strip to the simplicity of flesh and feast on the bounty offered by the Grand Seneschal's gaze, seeking new blood for new growth, leaving the earth wet with sacrifice.

Instead, she wrenched her eyes downward, staring at the parchment under Glynda's fingers. Looking at the other woman's hands wasn't much of an improvement for the situation, but Raven would be damned before she gave her body to another Springborn daughter. "Who am I taking that to?"

Glynda had to clear her throat twice before the words that came out lost its low and intimate rasp. "Summer Rose. Ozpin needs the Queen's eyes on our court in his absence."

Hearing the King's name aloud drew a scowl to Raven's lips, but the needle of anger was enough provocation for her to take Glynda's message instead of simply climbing over the desk. "He still has you running errands when you're fit to rut?"

Emerald eyes narrowed at the crude turn of phrase. "Deliver it with haste, Caller. Before Beltane keeps you within these gates."

"Gladly," Raven muttered, and turned herself away from Glynda before drawing her sword.

She could only cut a portal so close to the Queen without riling Summer's entire palace guard, but it was worth the risk to step right into the servants' hallway, the temptation of Spring sealed away the moment the tear sealed shut. For a moment, Raven had to lean back against the bare stone and breathe, Glynda's letter crushed in one sweat-soaked gauntlet. Her body was still wracked with need, desperate arousal ruining the smallclothes beneath her skirt, but at least the Summer Court wasn't so deeply attuned to her blood.

"Pardon me, your majesty," Raven murmured under her breath as she started to walk down the hall, "The King of Spring is breeding more bastards and needs you to make sure no one catches his trousers around his ankles."

Setting her teeth into the depths of irritation, Raven wrangled herself back to a sensible state by the time she reached Summer's door. The guards that flanked either side tensed at her approach, holding their breath, but she ignored them to raise a fist and knock. It took three thuds against the wood before she heard the Queen's muffled permission, and Raven swept past the threshold.

With the sun soon to fall, Summer had surrendered her regalia to the chest at the foot of her bed, crown and cloak locked away in a bed of red velvet. Without them, her black dress was a dark column in the center of the room, severed only by the pale, waxen lacing woven beneath Summer's ribs. If not for the centuries she had already ruled, Raven would scarcely be able to guess the Queen's age, for those who sat upon the rosewood throne were unburdened by time, immune to the withering whisper of the seasons that followed.

"The Hunt at my doorstep on Beltane." Summer's eyes flashed with amusement, holding the perpetual shine of quicksilver. "Ozpin's doing, I presume."

Raven had the grace to try and flatten the letter before handing it over, but the wrinkles were already etched deep into the parchment. "He calls for your aid, same as every year."

That moonlit gaze skimmed Glynda's shaky handwriting, splotches of ink bleeding through the end of every letter. "Do you need aid as well, good Caller? You smell unsated."

"I..." Summer's directness caught Raven off-guard; the Queen's comment could be taken in any number of ways, some more appealing than others. "Don't volunteer some pretty courtier on my account."

A soft hum of consideration left Summer's lips as she went to her desk, drawing a fresh sheaf of paper out of its drawer. Her reply to Ozpin was penned in swift strokes, the parchment folded on itself before a circle of wax closed it shut. Summer summoned a spark of heat through the ring she wore, the metal glowing red before she sank the sigil there deep into the wax. It cooled in seconds, leaving a detailed rose emerging from the soft surface.

"I was not volunteering someone who serves me," Summer finally replied, turning the letter over in her hands before she presented it to Raven, almost like an invitation, "The bed in here only belongs to myself, after all."

For what few laws bound the Wild Hunt, sleeping with a Sovereign technically didn't violate any protocol, although any union that produced a child could have grave consequences. No court wanted such undomesticated blood in the line of their ruler, and Raven would be surprised if such an heir lived to adulthood with all the noble daggers waiting in the wings. There was no threat of that here -- as far as she knew -- but Summer's offer still made Raven's heart ache in a way she couldn't quite express. What if it was out of pity?

"Save your grace for another," Raven managed to say aloud, taking the letter from Summer and tucking it into her belt, "I am well enough without it."

"Is that so?" Summer asked, voice twisting curiously around the question.

"My brother and I usually drink ourselves unconscious on Beltane, which is to everyone's benefit, I think." The joke landed flat, but the truth was the only armor Raven possessed at the moment. "We have no love lost for Spring."

"May I offer a parting gift, then?" The distance they shared was closed with one careful step, and Summer's dress was a whisper of cloth away from making the two of them touch. "To ease your travel."

She _hungered_. It felt like such a primal, animal admission, that something as simple as touch could render her a beast. Raven nodded before she could stop herself, and bit back a sound when Summer's fingers slipped beneath the edge of her mask, drawing it up and away. Her eyes recoiled from the light, their red long lost to pulsing black, but then Summer's hands were cupping her jaw, drawing her down to a warm and yielding mouth.

The kiss stung like a brand, searing through Raven's body until she was forced to pull away, her restraint twisted taut to one singular, quivering thread. One more touch, even Summer's breath against her skin, and it would snap.

"Blessed Beltane, your majesty," Raven gasped, then pulled her mask back down as if it would strip her of temptation.

Summer echoed the farewell right as she sliced another portal back to the Spring Court, stumbling through it and into a raucous celebration. Fae were gathered from gate to gate, dancing and carousing as casks of mead were opened, candied flowers and sweetmeats passed around on swiftly emptied trays. Several of them stared as Raven bullied past the crowd, desire chasing her like a ravenous wolf, teeth snapping at back and nape.

There was no answer at Glynda's door, and after knocking twice, Raven simply shoved the letter underneath it. She needed some sense of direction to make a portal back to the wildlands, but her head was still spinning with Summer's kiss, heart sounding a wardrum beat inside her chest. Spring fae were everywhere she looked, pulling at each other to find some scrap of privacy, or merely a surface that could bear the weight of their desire.

It was back in the dancing circle that she spied Glynda, locked in arms with Taiyang, a prince known more for who he bedded than his bloodline. Summerborn he was, but clearly not to the Grand Seneschal's taste, for Glynda suddenly shoved him back so hard that he had to break his fall on emerald-streaked marble. Raven's body tensed as if to lunge; she liked his vulnerable look, the need in his eyes burning like a flame seized between someone's hands.

Yet a flash of red and bronze caught her attention, bright as a hunter's bait. None other than Cinder Fall was standing across the way, the wolves of the Venery framing her shoulders. Golden eyes followed Glynda as she fled, a starved sort of smile climbing to the Autumn faerie's lips. In a whip of her cloak, Cinder had taken to the chase, and Raven could scarcely believe what she was seeing.

"Ambitious creature, aren't you?" Raven muttered, then froze in place when a hand wrapped around her wrist.

She looked at who would dare, and found Taiyang still beneath her, trying to get some leverage back to his feet. With a growl brewing in her throat, Raven yanked him to standing, reveling in the surprise on his face when he saw the full shape of her mask.

"Many thanks, Huntress," Taiyang's smile was open and sweet, nearly apologetic, "Do you need an escort back to the gates?"

He was not Summer, not by far, but the same court's blood ran in his veins. Raven could nearly taste it, her mind running in an endless loop about how the prince might sound when her teeth broke through sun-kissed skin.

So the gates was where she had him, pinned back against a nest of blossoming vines, stripping only away what was needed so their bodies could be joined. Somehow Taiyang never collapsed under the waves of her lust; he welcomed her, he welcomed everything.

Raven left the Spring Court before sunrise, aching but finally satisfied.

  
\--  
  



	2. Chapter 2

"You should have kept her," Qrow snapped.

Raven refused to look at him. The Summer-side steeds were fading fast into the distance, and one of them carried her daughter in a ragged black swath of cloth, her father's arms holding Yang close to his chest for the first time. Perhaps it had been cruel to name the girl after Taiyang, but it also marked the truth the noble blood that ran through young and fragile veins from both sides, even if only one half would ever be acknowledged.

Beltane. Thrice-cursed and fertile bloody _Beltane_.

For the first few months, Raven had hidden her pregnancy, but she and Qrow breathed the same air every morning and slept in tents side by side. When she started to vomit after every meal and roughly refuse each offer from his flask, her brother put the pieces together in short order. They had been fighting ever since, as the mood swings that sharpened her temper were a keen match for those brought on by his incessant need for liquor. Without her stony stoicism to weather Qrow's acidic nature, their bond had been warped thin enough to see through, ready to flake apart with the first hard blow.

"She's _yours_ ," he insisted, spit copper with whiskey as it landed on the snow, "She belongs to the Hunt."

"How many children are born to us each year, Qrow?" Raven seethed, anger filling the hollow carved into her breast, the one where Yang had been asleep moments ago. "Two, perhaps three? How many live?"

Qrow scoffed, the sound thick in his throat. "You're the Caller. It would be different-!"

"How many?!" The words were roared an inch from her brother's face before the volume was struck from Raven's lungs, leaving behind nothing but a bitter whisper. "How many heirs are buried without names because their families have cast them out? If it doesn't kill the one giving birth too."

"You're ruining a man's life." With a shake of his head, Qrow looked half-ill. Riding here had left windswept grooves along his brow, the sharp lines of his cheeks that tapered down into uneven grey stubble. "Claiming a bastard will cost him everything."

"I didn't fetch her out of a pile of leaves and thrust her into his arms." Raven couldn't muster the outrage she truly felt; of course Qrow would blame her for this, of course she had to be the responsible one. "If he cared so much about being a prince, he shouldn't have been fucking his way through the Spring Court."

"We're not the Spring Court." Qrow's voice was a rasp now, like salt and glass were sticking on the back of his tongue. Raven had never heard him abjure their blood so openly. "Did he even know when you bedded him?"

Taiyang had known, and it was the only truth walling off a tide of guilt, one that threatened to crush her heart entirely. "Even drowning among the dregs of Summer is better than living in the Deepwilds, brother. You know it's true. She would have died the first time I was thrown from my horse."

Raven wasn't even sure how she had survived so many months in the saddle, hips aching like two giant hands were trying to wrench them apart every waking moment. Summer's season was a humid, nauseating sort of torture, for nothing stayed for long in her stomach even as her belly started to swell. More than once the Hunt passed the particular herb she could have used to end things, and the temptation lingered for weeks. No one would have judged her for it; Raven had brewed the same bitter draught for several of them.

Something stopped her, although the source had been impossible to pin down. Pride wasn't anywhere near enough; pain tarnished it swiftly, and shame peeled away layer after layer until the bones were laid bare. Self-flagellation was another possibility, although Raven knew a dozen other ways to punish herself that didn't involve being wrapped in a heavy cloak for the last two seasons -- for once, winter's first snow had been a mercy.

"Then why have her, Raven?" Qrow's growled question pierced her thoughts, sticking deep as a barbed arrowhead. "Except to make the rest of us miserable."

"Shut up." Taiyang's horse was completely out of sight now, and the storm around them filled the trail of hoofprints with fresh snowfall. "That's your niece you're talking about. Be glad that our blood has some future outside this wretched place."

Much to her surprise, Qrow fell silent. Raven knew it wouldn't last for long, and reached for the branch where her mask hung like a totem. The bone was frigid and slick against her gloves, every damp edge cutting through blood-stained fabric. Sunlight reflected off every feral facet until she donned the helm once more, ignoring the jolt of cold that radiated straight to her skull. She whistled for her horse, making plans to hunt as far away from her as any of her riders could possibly stand to go.

It should have been the end of things, and would have been, if not for Summer Rose.

Fifty years slipped away like a husk in the wind, for little changed outside the four Courts, save for the faces of those who fought the Unseelie. Yet a thorn pricked in Raven's blood, crying a warning every time she stepped through rose-bound gates. Instinct was a fickle yet accurate thing; it sensed danger before the mind could fathom the reason, but without speech, the constant goading threatened to breed paranoia.

The few nights she had spent in the Summer Queen's bed did not dissuade that primal reckoning, for they were set apart by ages of silence, where Raven's only exchanges with the sovereign were in messages meant for other people. She had no cause to take it personally; everyone with an ear to the ground knew that Summer was avoiding marriage, and often paraded her suitors openly to dissuade serious offers from the heirs of her courts waiting in the wings, blood aflame with ambition. They burned, and she smiled.

Then Taiyang's sigil came to life on the inside of Raven's arm, and she didn't have the first idea of what to think.

In the breath before cutting the portal to him open, Raven wondered if Yang was dead, if he had tried to send the girl back to salvage what was left of his name. The thought lay in her stomach like a lump of lead as she stepped into a room surfeit with Summer finery; finery meant for a queen and not a fallen prince.

It was hard not to think that she had misread the summons, but the fading mark on her gauntlet was sharp with fire, not blood-bright petals. Footsteps from the doorway caught Raven's ear, and Taiyang stood at the threshold wearing a scarlet tunic shot through with black and white thread. His family colors were the orange and yellow of a dying sunset, yet he bore no sign of them at all.

"Raven." She hated how Taiyang said her name, heavy with wonder. Spite would have made things so much more simple. "It's been a long time."

"Of course it has." Back then, Raven made it clear that he was not to chase her, that Yang's upbringing was no business of the Wild Hunt. "Did you honestly call me to send a message when any rider I have would do?"

He laughed, and for a moment looked half his age. "But my message is for you."

"Then spit it out." Whatever game was being played here, she had no patience for it.

Taiyang's mirth vanished, and he reached deep into his pocket before pulling out a piece of silvered parchment, the Queen's seal impressed upon the top in carnelian ink. He offered it to her with both hands, and Raven read the script on it three times before the words came together with any semblance of sense.

"You're _marrying_ Summer Rose?" Saying it out loud sounded like madness, as if the very concept was twisting her tongue. "She's the Queen and you're..."

"A prince," Taiyang countered softly. "My title was never formally stripped."

No one would go to the trouble of petitioning the court when being shunned from every noble event did far more damage, when the gentry guarded their own names like Taiyang's would stain them with scandal. Raven remembered hearing a rumor years ago that he was serving as an attendant somewhere in the castle, but had never glimpsed him once, and assumed it was cruel kitchen gossip gotten out of hand.

"Why are you telling me this?" Suspicion edged its way into Raven's voice, red eyes narrowed like a serpent's. "It's not like I have any claim to her _or_ you."

"I..." Taiyang swallowed hard, and the spark of revelation in his eyes confirmed he'd had no idea they shared the same bed, if only by proxy. "I see. That is why Summer asked me to make the summons."

"That's nonsense. She's summoned me plenty of times." Saying so was turning the knife in his heart, but Raven didn't care to clarify how often she was merely a messenger. "I'm not offended, if that's what you think."

"No, I-" Shaking his head, Taiyang held his hand out for the invitation; Raven surrendered it without a word. "This wasn't supposed to be about any of us. It's about Yang."

Raven bit her tongue. Never once had she mentioned Yang to Summer, but surely the queen knew that Taiyang's daughter was half-Wild, that she was born outside the anchor of the courts despite her lineage. It bid Raven to ask the question piercing her heart like a spear.

"Does she want to be rid of her?"

Taiyang's eyes went wide. "No! No, of course not. But Yang is old enough to be a royal heir, if Summer permitted it."

Raven tapped the side of her head, as if it would help her hear correctly. "Heir? Do you want your daughter to die with a dozen Court blades in her back? They will tear her apart the second they have the chance."

"Not with Summer's protection," he scoffed.

She closed the distance between them in one solid step, grabbing the front of Taiyang's tunic before shoving him up against the wall. The spiked plates of her gauntlets dug into his ribs, soft-soled boots hanging an inch above the floor from the force of rage coursing through her.

"You've either lost your mind, or you're hiding something from me," Raven hissed, breath hot against Taiyang's mouth, "So which is it?"

His silence was all the proof she needed. It was the same quiet that possessed Taiyang the night she had told him about Yang's birth, about the choice he would have to make. Raven's grip relaxed by degrees until she dropped him, disbelief leaving her entire body cold.

"Summer's carrying your child, isn't she?" At the end of the day, his court's passion ruled him, and the Queen's ruled her. "Yang is bound to the throne twice-over, because that sibling will be born with the court's blessing. That's why you're getting married."

"It's not the only reason." Taiyang sounded offended, brushing out the subtle wrinkles and rips in his tunic. "I love her."

"I'm sure you do," Raven snarled. "I'll speak to the Queen myself."

"Raven, she's..." Another secret glimmered in Taiyang's eyes, although he sought to cover it with haste. "She has not been taken private audiences as of late."

"Since that hunting accident, mm?" That was the story that spread through the courts a few months ago, but Raven couldn't conceive of any 'accident' powerful enough to take a monarch's eye for good. They were imbued with a power other fae simply did not have, walking side by side with eternity.

It was quite the way to hide a pregnancy, feigning an injury that would make the nobility uncomfortable; the golden crust of the court dreaded being reminded of mortal weakness.

"Yes," Taiyang answered softly, but would not hold her gaze.

"I don't care." With blade in hand, Raven scratched a portal in the wall right beside him, paying no mind to the tapestry that was cleft in twain, nor the rasp of stone underneath it. "Neither one of you rule me."

She stepped through, letting the portal collapse without a glance back. Summer's quarters appeared the same as always, although the heavy crimson curtains were drawn shut over silver-braced windows, despite the fact that the sun had long since fallen. The Queen herself was at her desk, cloak wrapped tight around her shoulders, and the matching band of an eyepatch cutting through the the back of dark hair. All the red-tipped threads were dull, nearly blending in with the rest.

The room reeked of roses. Raven was accustomed to the faint scent that carried from Summer's skin, a quirk of her bloodline, but this was artificial and intoxicating, as if perfume had soaked through the carpets, climbed the walls to bury itself in lacquer and paint. She was drunk on it for several breaths, swaying in place until her senses recovered.

"Raven." Summer spoke without turning around, and with the window in front of her concealed, there was no way to see the Queen's expression. "You cannot be here."

"I damn well can." It was hard to know where to start, when anger beat against her breast for so many conflicting reasons. "You're bringing my daughter into your house."

The monarch paused, just long enough for Raven to realize that Summer had expected a completely different sort of confrontation. "It is only fair to do so when I am marrying her father. She knows nothing but court life, and deserves more than the court has given her."

"How long have you known?" This had to be purposeful; decisions surrounding the throne were not made without decades of contemplation.

"Does it matter, Raven?" Exhaustion culled the command from Summer's voice, and Raven tasted ash on her tongue beneath the roses.

"Look at me." She snapped the words like an order, instinct bolstering a sudden jolt of suspicion. "Summer."

" _Leave!_ " The Queen's fist struck her desk hard enough to splinter the wood, splitting the edge of her knuckles open. Blood rushed to meet the wound, sluggish and dark.

Nearly the color of obsidian.

Raven lunged forward, one gauntleted hand cupping under Summer's chin to bare her throat  while the other brought the blade of her sword a centimeter from quivering flesh. She fought her first instinct to sever head from neck, but the Queen didn't struggle at all. Summer had her remaining eye closed in silent acceptance, but when the blow didn't come, she looked up at her would-be executioner.

"Don't move." Raven hissed under her breath, fingers tracing up Summer's face until they found the patch. It loosened with a tug, and the eye underneath it was a corruption of color; white lost to black, silver stained Unseelie red. "No. You..."

The cycle followed the seasons. Since Amber's death, Raven had assigned members of the Hunt to stalk the Winter Court, often spying in the royal palace itself to ensure no one in the Schnee line started to turn. How could the curse rebound to Summer once more, when she ruled over the court's most peaceful dynasty in generations?

"The throne." Summer's confession was quiet, resigned. "The rosewood throne bleeds as I bleed. My mother's legacy did not end with her death."

"How long have you known?" To ask that question twice in succession pulled at Raven's heart in ways she didn't wish to fathom, but this time there had to be an answer.

"Not until the corruption began to show." Summer laughed, the hollow sound echoed in her lungs. "Not until I knew I was with child."

Thus the hunting 'accident', and the promise of marriage to Taiyang after so many years of abjuring even the thought of such commitment. "Summer, your child will have Rose eyes. They will have Rose blood."

"She," Summer corrected softly. "I'm having a daughter, as my mother and my mother's mother and so many generations before."

"Then she will have your weakness." Raven's fingers brushed along the line of Summer's face, right beneath the eye that was yet silver. "This cannot continue. You're half your mother's age, and yet this has already taken you. Your daughter will turn sooner, until there is no line left to claim that throne."

Even with the blade at her neck, Summer managed a small nod. "Is it true that Wild blood can resist this?"

"If it comes by nature," Raven answered without thinking, then cursed under her breath. "Yang. You mean Yang."

"I can give her my mark of Inheritance before the end comes." Summer spoke as if it was the most simple thing in the world, rather than a tragedy collapsing around them. "I can make her Queen, and you can help her cleanse my throne."

"Summer..." Betraying everything the Hunt had ever made her into, Raven lowered her sword from the other woman's throat and took a step back. "No. _No_."

The Queen turned in her seat, and the small wooden chair may as well have been a pedestal for the power that exuded from Summer's presence, a force of command that she drew into her flesh. "There is no other way."

"Your own court will kill her before she has the chance to do anything!" Raven snapped, and sheathed her blade before she thought better of it. "The Hunt does not inherit. We claim nothing."

"She was claimed by Taiyang Xiao Long before my eyes, and her name has never been consigned to the Wild." Holding Summer's gaze was difficult with her corruption exposed, the same side of her mouth pulled up in a pale rictus of tension. "By my command, Yang is Summerborn. But her blood is your blood, courtless and unscathed."

For the first time in centuries, Raven could have wept. Tears didn't spill forth, but she felt the burn of them hiding in wait along her face, held at the corners of each eye. "Mark her, then. I will come for you the night after."

"Please." To hear a Queen beg, even Summer, whose body and mind she knew with utmost intimacy, left Raven ill at ease. "Wait until Ruby is born."

Of course the girl already had a name, and of course Summer would use it against her. "You don't have enough time left."

"I will _make_ the time," Summer countered sharply. "I have held out this long. Give me one more turn of the seasons, Raven. Long enough to see her face."

It was the last thing she should have agreed to. There were a hundred reasons to argue, first and foremost that a second collapse of the Summer throne would plunge the four Courts back into a civil war. Yet to force Yang onto the throne in days, without any preparation, would spur a backlash hard enough to begin another sort of war instead. A few months was scarcely any time at all, but more than nothing.

Raven reached for the vial tucked into her belt, prying it free and showing Summer the poison held behind a veil of crystal. "After she's born, drink this to the last drop."

"And that will kill me?" Summer asked, even as she took the vial from Raven's grasp.

"In days. Perhaps a week if you are not as far along as I fear." In truth, she suspected that Summer wouldn't survive more than a night. "Get your affairs in order. Do not make me come and find you."

"Thank you, Raven." Relief stole the pain from Summer's face, and produced a fraction of a smile. "And I'm sorry."

"Don't be, my Queen." Summer was never _hers_ , but for a moment, the idea was pleasant to consider. "You never had a choice."

They kissed before she returned to the Hunt, both as a promise and a goodbye.

\--

Torches burned upon their smoky sconces, but the stones beneath Raven’s feet misted with a faint layer of frost. Her stride never wavered as she approached, led through the night-darkened halls of Autumn’s castle to its newly raised Sovereign by a young slip of a Faunus. Ears tipped with black fur twitched at every wayward sound. Though the Faunus had the blood of predators in their veins, they moved with the wariness of prey. Their livery was too pristine; they were new to court.

“What’s your name?” Raven asked, not slowing her steps.

The Faunus hesitated before answering, “Blake.”

With a contemplative hum, the sound dimmed beneath the Caller’s mask, Raven cocked her head to study her guide. “I wasn’t aware they let children into court service -- not outside of Winter’s lands, at any rate.”

Raven could not see the upper half of Blake’s face behind the customary servant’s mask, but their ears pinned back flat against their head. To their credit, their voice remained level and calm, when they replied, “I saw my second century last year.”

“Bullshit,” Raven said. “You’re barely over a century, or I’ll eat crow.”

Clearing their throat, Blake’s steps slowed as they turned a corner and started down a long hallway, empty but for a set of honor guard flanking each wing. The Faunus lowered their voice to mutter, “Time must seem to pass more slowly in the mortal realm, or so I’ve heard.”

Raven’s eyebrows rose. “Is that so?” When Blake made no reply, Raven said, “It’s quite the opposite. In the mortal realm, time devours all things.”

The guards paid them no mind, but still Blake cast a furtive glance to their side before asking, “Then, how do you and the Wild Hunt survive?”

Raven shrugged, her worn hide armour creaking with the movement. “Mortality is like a poison: harmless in small doses. Stay out there too long however, and it gets in your veins. You get slow, tired, weak, until one day you lie down to sleep and never get back up. There are some exceptions, of course.”

“Like what?”

“Fae with liminal inclinations,” Raven answered, giving the list by rote. “Beings born to the mortal realm, but not of the mortal realm. Domicile faeries, seventh sons of seventh sons, and-”

Raven went silent when the great carved doors at the end of the hall creaked open a sliver. Out slipped a fae dressed in white and black and coral pinks. She did not speak as Blake and Raven approached, but dipped into a curtsy when Raven drew near.

“-and Changelings,” Raven finished. She drew to a stop, and rested her hand on the pommel of her sword as the fae straightened. “It’s been a while, Neo. Still sneaking into the mortal realm to snatch babes from the crib?”

Neo’s only answer was a wide smile filled with sharp, needle-like teeth.

With a sour grunt, Raven said, “I’d heard talk that you’d fallen in with a bad crowd. I see the rumors are true.”

Silent as ever, Neo turned her attention to Blake, and jerked her head in curt dismissal. The Faunus bowed low, hand clenched in a fist over their heart, before backing away and melting into the shadows. Even to Raven’s trained ear, Blake’s footsteps were faint, nearly non-existent. Keeping her gaze fixed on Neo, Raven gestured towards the door, “Your Queen has called me. Show me in.”

Raising an incredulous eyebrow, Neo made a face, and fluttered her fingers at Raven’s attire, still battle-worn and grime-encrusted from her travels.

“Oh, shut the fuck up, and let me in!” Raven snapped.

With an irreverent shrug, Neo turned and waved a hand at two of the guards, who leapt forward to open the double-doors. They pushed with their shoulders, straining at the weight, doors groaning upon their bronze hinges. Inside, the ground was veiled in a carpet of mist that swirled around Raven’s ankles when she stepped through the doors. She gripped her sword, but the act gave very little comfort when faced with the full force of a newly ascended Sovereign.

A crackling fireplace was the only source of light in the room. The rest hung in darkness, as if encased in an obsidian resin. Furnishings loomed like the trunks of trees, and the scent of a fresh kill clotted the air, thick, and raw, and wild. Even when receiving guests outside Autumn’s throneroom, Cinder wore a stag’s skull. A crown of antlers and blood-weathered bone perched atop her head and obscured her face. Standing at a narrow window, a slant of moonlight tangled in the sweep of her dark hair, and a golden glow from the nearby fireplace caught on the edges of her red gown, glinted on the lacquered plates of her shoulders and arms. An outfit for courts and battlefields alike, as if the Queen of Autumn could not differentiate between the two.

Raven stopped just a few paces into the room, unable to bring herself to move forward, to draw closer to the source of Autumn’s rule. Being so near Cinder at a time like this, when she had not yet had time to temper her newfound power, made the tips of Raven’s fingers tremble -- blood called out for blood.

“Leave us,” Cinder commanded, and though her voice was no more than a dark murmur, the sound sent an icy shiver racing up Raven’s spine like a premonition.

Raven paid no attention to Neo’s curtsy, nor to the sound of her leaving and closing the doors, leaving them alone. Every motion, every rise and fall of Cinder’s chest, the distant hint of harvest’s breeze curling Cinder’s hair, the fire’s crackle, and the mist-strewn air -- heightened Raven’s senses to a honed edge. She should be reaching for bow and arrows, not for etiquette.

Swallowing past the sudden dryness in her throat, Raven spoke, and her voice felt like an intrusion on some holy ground, “You requested my presence, and so I am here. What do you require of the Hunt’s services?”

Cinder turned, a movement too fluid, too swift to be seen, so that it seemed she shifted from stance to stance with no gesture in between. From the dark hollows of the hart’s skull, her eyes burned gold, and pierced the air. She was a wine-blackened silhouette wreathed in fog and moonlight.

“I have a letter for you to deliver.”

Raven’s eyebrows rose. “And you specifically requested my presence for this task? Any one of my Hunters could have delivered it for you.”

“I did not want anyone. I wanted you.”

Without another word, Cinder gestured towards an elegantly carved writing desk, sprawled with numerous sheafs of parchment, bronze-capped inkwells, and falcon-fletched quills. Careful to keep an eye on Cinder, Raven crossed the room to pick up a carefully folded square of parchment, bound with a royal waxen seal. It was small enough to slip into the edge of a bracer, and unassuming enough to escape the notice of any but the most discerning eye. Raven had always thought Cinder incapable of subtlety, but then again Raven had for centuries believed Cinder would never amount to anything. Just another Nameless courtier, who would hang herself in her own tangled ambitions.

“Might I ask what this almighty all-important missive contains?” Raven could not keep the drawl from her voice. As she turned the letter over, the Queen’s seal glimmered faintly, pressed into gold-flecked wax dark as dried blood upon the blade. The parchment was warm beneath her hands, and she knew from experience that letters such as these bore enchantments powerful enough to burn an unsuspecting hand should the unintended receiver attempt to open it.

“You may.” If anything, Cinder sounded amused. “You’ll be happy to hear that I am deterring a war, my dear Caller.”

At that, Raven froze, and her hand tightened around the letter, making the edge crumple. When she loosened her grip however, the parchment smoothed itself out once more. She had to clear her throat and don a veneer of calm before asking, “A war with whom?”

Though Raven could not see Cinder’s face, her voice carried a sharp-toothed smile. “I am aware you and the Summer Queen are on _friendly terms_ for a variety of reasons that interest me very little, apart from when they interest me very much. Ergo, I thought it best the news come from you.”

A chill crept down Raven’s spine, thrilling her blood, and nearly stopping the breath in her chest. Cinder couldn’t know. She couldn’t possibly know. Swallowing down her apprehensions, Raven tried to keep a level edge to her voice, though she gripped the hilt of her sword when she replied, “Summer has no ill intentions towards other the other courts, least of all yours.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong-” Cinder said in a tone that was far too smug in the knowledge it held, “-but was it not the last Summer Queen who succumbed to Unseelie corruption, who spread war and ruination throughout the four courts? To some, that might be considered a momentary lapse. To others, a weakness the court will bear for millennia to come. Perhaps that’s yet another reason why you linger upon Summer’s grounds.”

The longer Cinder spoke, the harder Raven tightened her hold on the hilt of her sword, until she could feel the impressions of the tightly-woven leather strips in her palm.

“It isn’t,” Raven growled.

“Well, then.” Cinder cocked her head, and Raven swore she could see the smirk now. “My mistake.”

“If you suspect the Summer Queen of corruption-” Raven began, feeling her mouth go dry even as she spoke.

“What I _suspect,”_ Cinder interrupted before Raven could finish, “is the movement of armed forces between our border. As for the rest -- well. I would hate to have my hand forced into a more thorough investigation, should such activities continue.”

“If Summer’s personal troops had been involved in any movement along your border, I would have known,” Raven insisted.

“Then perhaps the Summer Queen should rein in her nobility, before I gladly do so myself.” When Cinder moved forward, the hems of her dress swept around her feet like the sweep of crimson leaves along the ground, stirred by a passing breeze. “The ambitions of the gentry are not a subject to be taken lightly. Especially when they decide to take up arms in the name of their ambitions rather than that of their Sovereign.”

“Speaking from experience, are you?” Raven sneered, looking around at the fine furnishings, the kingly quarters, then back at Cinder with her crown of antlers.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Outright military maneuvers are so gauche.”

“And risky. Especially for one without either an Heir, or a stomach for battle.” Raven felt a stir of cruel triumph when Cinder had no swift reply.

“It would seem I’m not alone in that category,” Cinder murmured after a moment. “Though I’m sure you’ve seen more than your fair share of Spring bastards join the Wild Hunt.”

Raven shifted her shoulders, and the feathers adorning the lining of her pauldrons rustled. “A few.”

“I suppose we should thank our lucky stars that none of them can come crawling out of the woodwork, hand outstretched for the throne and crown. Can you imagine? A wildling Sovereign? Curtailing the ambitions of the nobility would be the least of their problems.” Beneath the hart’s skull, Cinder’s eyes sparkled with vicious glee as she watched Raven’s shoulders tense, and she took a step forward as though she could smell the faltering of Raven’s very thoughts.

Raven resisted the urge to take a step back, instead straightening her spine and meeting Cinder’s gaze with a glare of her own. “Spring is not without its options.”

“A dearth of options has never been Spring’s problem, but a breadth.”

Everyone who lived to their first Beltane knew that. “And why should I care? The burden of court politics are not mine to bear.”

“And yet, perhaps your time would be better spent concerning yourself with the stability of the courts, rather than the warmth of Summer’s bed.” Cinder shot back. “Or am I mistaken in believing that balance is the Wild Hunt’s greatest charge?”

Raven drew in a breath so sharply, the air hissed through her clenched teeth. Shadows danced in the corners amidst the swirls of fog around her ankles, the cold gripping her calves like the grasp of skeletal fingers even as the fireplace snapped with motes of ash at her heels. The closer Cinder drew, the higher the flames leapt as if in answer to her proximity. Raven did not take a move back, but she did take a step to the side, away from the fire, from the scorch and char of the Autumn Queen’s presence. She was not safer with her back to the doors, but it made Raven feel better all the same.

Finally Raven answered, “The Spring Court is the least of my concerns. She may not be officially in line for the throne, but Goodwitch would take up the mantle should Ozpin expire. No one doubts she would make for an exceptional Sovereign in her own right.”

Even Raven begrudgingly ascribed to the impression that the Knight of Spring would be a stable and formidable Queen, should it fall to the worst. In fact, her only failing seemed to be her ties to Cinder -- Cinder, who was forever slung like a lodestone around Glynda’s neck, dragging her astray even as Glynda desperately tried to resist the call and maintain her course. At the mention of Glynda’s name, Cinder went very still, and the hart’s skull was unable to hide the faint tremor of heat that lifted through the air like the warning of a far-flung forest fire.

“At last, something we wholeheartedly agree upon.” Cinder’s voice was low enough to be a whisper, though Raven heard every word with clarity. “And what, pray tell, do you count among your greatest concerns? When you’re not losing yourself to the oblivion of blood and the bottle, that is.”

In a smooth swift motion, Raven drew her blade in an arc of gleaming scarlet. The length of it shone red in the firelight, and when she turned her wrist over, the tip of the sword grazed the wooden floorboards, cutting through the mist that clung to the air. Cinder tilted her head to one side in a contemplative fashion, but made no other movement, as if calmly waiting to see how events played out, spread before her like pieces on a board game.  

“You wouldn’t be the first Autumn royal I’ve killed, Your Majesty.” Raven let the title twist in her mouth with disdain. Then, she raised her hand, and cut a portal in the air, which churned and swirled in a surge of blood-dark power. Sheathing her sword once more, she tipped her head in a nod towards Cinder, and said, “Never doubt my dedication to snuffing out corruption, wheresoever it may be found. No throne can protect you from the Hunt.”

A note of some deep-rooted fear could be heard when Cinder spoke, “A Name was not the only thing I disinherited, when my mother fell to the Unseelie. Unless you sense otherwise?”

For a moment, Raven said nothing. Then, she shook her head. Not a trace of corruption could she detect. Not like Summer, whose rot gripped her from within, the stench of death and decay eating her up with every passing day; only a lack of familiarity within the court secured her secret. Raven took a step toward the portal, only to stop when Cinder’s voice interrupted her departure.

“Then I see no reason for us to ever be at odds. Rest assured,” Cinder’s gazed gleamed, golden and lidless beneath the mask of bone. “I shall keep a close eye out for any hint of corruption. Should I find anything, you’ll be the first to know.”

Raven did not reply. Clenching her hands into fists, she stepped through the portal, unable to keep the haste from her steps. Even when it folded shut behind her, she could still feel the impression of Cinder’s eyes burning into her spine.

\--

A young Sovereign cleansing their court should not have made Raven as nervous as it did. Then again, no young Sovereign cleansing their court had the right to be as outright bloody as Cinder. Dimly, Raven could recall Summer’s ascension to the throne, the brief tide of resistance before the nobility fell into line. She had been but a child, then -- a mere century, if that -- but the memory stood out, stark as a ridge over a distant treeline. The gentry murmuring behind closed doors and behind masked faces, but never this. Never drawn knives and drawn swords and drawn, fearful faces. Never bloodshed. Never public executions.

One by one, Autumn’s Changeling Knight dragged each member of the so-called conspiracy to the fore of the court, yanking them by their chains, kicking the backs of their knees and stepping along the curvature of their spines until they were bent double over the headsman’s block, awaiting the axe’s sharp-edged verdict. The entire court watched with bated breath. Cythera and her allies faced the throne, and Cinder sat before them all, clad in her blood-lacquered half armour and bone crown as if leading a worshipful congregation. Not far to the side, Raven watched, Qrow at her side, the conspirators’ children before her. Cinder had put the children in chains as well, more symbolic than anything else.

Neo hefted her axe overhead. She let it fall. With a sickening crunch of meat and bone, Cythera’s head toppled to the floor, her body slumped. One of the children -- Cythera’s daughter, no doubt -- turned her face away with a soft gasp. Raven reached out and grabbed her shoulder, hard enough that the girl winced.

“Look,” Raven murmured, keeping her voice low enough to not be overheard. “Watch and remember. Remember this day, this moment.”

The girl trembled beneath Raven’s grip, but she watched. They all watched. Cythera’s body was dragged away in a wide smear of blood, tossed aside for burning along with the others. They would go up in a fiery immolation to a chorus of whispered vespers as night touched the sky, until nothing remained by memory and ash.

When Cinder glanced over during Lord Raleigh’s execution to gauge the children’s reactions, Raven could see the gleam in her eyes. Not wicked, not gloating, but grave. Approving, even. Like a scholar watching her pupils come to grips with a hard-earned lesson.

Raven could remember all too clearly their confrontation that morning before the executions began. How, reluctant by duty-bound, she had answered Cinder’s summons. How she had listened to Cinder’s cool-spun rationale as the Autumn Queen detailed the coming day’s events.

Mouth dry, Raven had rasped, “What proof do you have?”

“Proof? Why, don’t you remember, my good Caller?” Cinder’s eyes positively glowed with amusement. “You gave me the proof yourself. Just last fortnight.”

When Raven had simply stared at her in bewilderment, Cinder had moved forward, close enough to lean in and whisper to Raven’s ear, “I told you: if Summer would not rein in her nobles, I would gladly do it myself. And what a perfect opportunity it was. A bit of captured correspondence between rebel factions, all because of your good graces. I really ought to thank you for services rendered unto the crown."

Without the hart’s skull, Cinder’s cheek had briefly brushed against Raven’s own, her words a wine-warm exhalation against Raven’s skin, making her shiver. The dark sweep of Cinder’s hair smelled of chrism smoke, of long nights tearing through mist-cloaked mountains. She had been so near, flushed all in triumph and fire-crowned glory. It would have been so easy to grab her by the shoulders, fix her teeth in Cinder’s neck and--and--

Instead, Raven had taken a step back. “Why do you require the Hunt’s presence now?”

There had been no flash of disappointment in Cinder’s eyes, only a glint of humour, darkly etched. “Your services are needed. Not every member of this treacherous coalition will face the executioner’s block.”

“Mercy?” Raven sneered. “How very unlike you.”

At that, Cinder shrugged. “I’d hardly call your lifestyle a mercy, but suit yourself.”

“Who am I taking?”

“A few of their children.” Then Cinder waved her hand in a dismissive manner.

Raven’s jaw had hardened, tendons bunching as she had clenched her teeth. “I don’t like taking children.”

Raising an eyebrow, Cinder had cocked her head and studied Raven with a dispassionate gaze.

“If you don’t take them, you’ll force my hand. They cannot remain here; that would be appalling form. And I’d rather not be known as a child-killer.”

Somehow the fact that it was not the notion of killing children that bothered Cinder, but being remembered as such, had made Raven’s stomach seethe.

“So, will you take them?”

The axe sang. A hot flash of blood splattered across the dais as if across a grand stage. Red flecked the fine silks of Cythera’s daughter’s clothes. She trembled beneath Raven’s hand, eyes wide, face pale, but made not a sound.

It was not the end. Cinder could wreak havoc upon her own court, but the realms beyond remained out of her reach. There was still Ozpin and Silberne and -- for now, at least -- Summer. When Summer fell, when Yang took the throne, the others would be strong enough to fend off Autumn’s notice. Balance hung by a slivered thread, but it hung nonetheless, and that was all that mattered.

“I’ll take them,” Raven had spat, feeling sick when Cinder smiled as if Raven had walked right herself right into an inescapable corner.

Now, Cinder reposed upon Autumn’s wild throne, blood at her feet, blood on her hands, blood in her eyes, watching Raven with that same look, that same keen-edged smile.

_“I’ll take them, damn you.”_

\--

The boy was a fool, but at least he was a compliant one.

Flanked by Velvet and Yatsuhashi, Jaune stared with wide-eyed awe at the verdant stretch of Spring's gates as they unfolded in welcome. Raven made sure he stayed within her sight, signaling Coco and Fox to ride ahead and warn Glynda that they had nearly arrived. The delivery of a seventh son required little ceremony, but the sooner he was out of the Wild Hunt's hands the better.

"Are you sure I'm supposed to be here," he mumbled, for the tenth or so time that day, "I just can't..."

"Shut up," Yatsuhashi grunted, a crack showing in his nigh-impenetrable calm. He had taken to the Hunt's training well; they all had. "The mortal world would have killed you the moment you were discovered."

"But I am mortal." Jaune said with a laugh, seconds before his face drained of blood. "Aren't I? _Wait_."

Velvet laughed into the curve of her cloak, and Raven rolled her eyes behind the Caller's mask. Their steeds rode into the public square where guests of Spring were to be met, although the Hunt cast aside such formalities more often than not. Taking him straight to the Knight's doorstep would cause more trouble than it was worth, especially since his jaw kept falling just shy of the floor. Rumors rode faster than any horse the courts possessed.

Closing the gap between them, Velvet paused at Raven's side, dropping her voice to a whisper. "The nobles are still talking about it, Caller. Just like last month."

"About the Ironblooded?" A month meant the gossip had teeth, and enough evidence to chew on. "If they're in Autumn's fighting pits, there's a lot more to worry about than this wayward son."

Velvet shrugged, and it was there that her youth showed. Never in her lifetime had the seasons been thrown off-balance, and Raven knew the only war the Faunus witnessed was the one that killed her mother, snuffed out before the flame could spread. That the Ironblooded should have been born within Winter's stead meant nothing to her, although perhaps that was for the best.

"Goodwitch, left gate," Yatsuhashi warned, and Raven turned to look where he directed.

Spring's Knight was in full regalia, resplendent with gold and emerald, broken by the spotless white of her tunic. A young man wearing squire's cloth hurried to meet her stride, a bright stripe of pink dividing the line of his dark hair, mussed in haste.

"Get the boy down off his horse so he doesn't break his neck," Raven ordered.

Yatsuhashi had enough reach to obey without dismounting himself, nudging Jaune off the saddle and onto pale cobblestone. "Listen to everything Ser Goodwitch tells you. She doesn't often say it twice."

Jaune gulped, then nodded.

"Caller Branwen," Glynda's voice carried clear as a bell through the square, and the nobles nearby cleared a path to let her through, "You've brought us a new son of Spring?"

"That's what his blood says." Raven wondered what faerie from this court had slipped out to breed with humans, but even seven mortal generations was a fair amount of time to track. What a waste, considering how long it took for magic to take hold again. "Found him healing farm animals when no one was looking."

"My mother said I wasn't supposed to tell anyone," Jaune interrupted.

So she must have known what was to come, Raven mused. Only a few humans respected the oldest ways, leaving sacrifices with each turn of the seasons, but many feared faerie power, despite how rarely it crossed into their world. "Welcome home, boy. Our business is done."

Glynda's expression soured, but she gave a nod of confirmation. "Indeed. Your service is appreciated as always."

Raven didn't want to leave quite yet; Coco and Fox hadn't returned, which meant they were collecting information that could be of use later. "How's Ozpin doing, anyway?"

"The King's wellbeing is none of your concern," Glynda countered, and Raven would have laughed if she wasn't sure the other woman believed it. "Nor are the circumstances of his Inheritance, if that is your next question."

There was the Winter heritage in the Knight's line, crisp and sharp. "Would I be so crass?"

"Between you and your brother, I am not sure there's a time you're never not." Turning on her heel, Glynda secured Jaune's shoulder in an iron grip. "Come now, Arc. You have a long education ahead of you."

She swept him away before Raven could even pretend the courtesy of a goodbye, but her two wandering hunters returned a moment later. Coco rode up first, smile bright with captured gossip; her mother often had the same look, once upon a time.

"The Ironblooded _is_ in Autumn's arms."  Coco rubbed darkly gloved hands together, unaware that she delivered poison like honey, "Her name is Pyrrha Nikos. She fights in the tournaments."

"And how are you so certain, mm?" Raven raised a brow. "If it's true, she would have been claimed already, given her title."

Fox brought his steed up another step, voice falling to a whisper. "Because she is being tested tonight before the public, Caller. It's a setup by the Queen herself."

Cinder. Who else would dare?

"We're leaving. _Now._ " Raven whipped around in a thunder of hooves, ignoring the startled gasps of Spring nobles as the others stumbled to catch up. "I'll cut a portal the moment we're free from curious eyes."

\--

The fighting pits were unnamed, but they needed no formal moniker when _pit_ was an all-encompassing description. Each one was gouged deep into the earth, remnants of ancient mines that collapsed before they were reclaimed. Blood and rust collided with the acrid smell of raw Dust, still clinging to the walls in granules too impure to hone to better use. There was no fee of entry for those who wished to watch; coin was made in bets and souvenirs -- usually the shattered armor and weapons of those who had suffered gruesome losses.

True deaths in the tournaments were rare, but the threat was ever-present, and that was the primal appeal. Raven bullied her way down a winding path of hewn stone, bypassing drunken viewers who were taking a break in the matches to guzzle down mead by the barrel. Fox was to her left, with the unlucky duty of catching the Ironblooded's scent -- his eyes saw nothing, but he was swiftly becoming the keenest tracker she had -- and Velvet to her right, filtering through every fractured word around them with equally discerning ears.

Yatsuhashi's breadth brought up their rear, ensuring that there was space enough to retreat if the time called for it. Coin in hand, Raven had sent Coco down into the tunnels where the fighters were getting prepared, bribing the next matchups out of whoever was fixing them for the evening. The answer came just as they reached the lower reaches of the stands: the so-called Ironblooded was taking on two opponents next.

"I need a taste of her to prove it," Raven murmured quietly, looking out over the pit. Red clay caked jagged stone, darker splashes soaked along the sharper edges. "I have to know if she's Autumnborn or not."

"If she's the Ironblooded, that won't be easy," Fox countered.

She slipped an arrowhead out of her pouch and pressed it into one of his hands; Amber's death had come from the same forged set, so rarely were they used. "Scratch her with this on the way into the arena. It'll take."

"I don't look like one of the fighters." He must have felt her glare, because Fox smiled. "Fine. I'll veil myself. You're lucky I only use that magic for good."

Whatever good could be in a time and place like this. Raven dismissed him with a grunt, and watched a reflection slip along dark skin before he disappeared completely from view. The grates barring the fighters from one another were rising; Fox needed to be quick.

A column of red caught Raven's eye, and she followed the length of a crimson ponytail down to a set of bronze shoulders clad in brass-plated armor. The first warrior of the lot, carrying a spear and shield with equal ease, with eyes honed, faceted by focus. Most of the fighters behind her were jeering and cheering each other on, but this one was quiet, surveying the battlefield in front of her like she knew how every move to follow would play out.

"That's her, isn't it?" Velvet whispered. "That's Pyrrha."

"We won't know until Fox gathers the evidence." Putting that complication aside, Raven sought out Pyrrha's opponents. It was a lowborn pair, a woman and a man, and yet their weapons looked brand new; scythes and spiked plates for knuckles and knees alike. "But there's the setup."

"How can we be so sure it's the Queen's doing?" Yatsuhashi's words were faint breath over the top of Raven's hair; he truly was one of the tallest faeries she had ever laid witness to. It was hard to imagine he was only half-grown.

"Because the only accidents that happen in this court are the ones Cinder Fall arranges," Raven growled.

Except even someone like the Queen of Autumn couldn't unravel the timeless cycle of the Ironblooded to her whim. It followed the seasons with every death, and had since there were courts and records to count them. If Pyrrha's blood was tied to Cinder's throne, some thread of certainty had been unwoven from the world, pulled out and left to fray.

Pyrrha winced and rubbed at her arm. For a fraction of a blink, Raven saw the shine of the arrowhead, and watched both concern and curiosity wander over the warrior's face. It was the look of someone who had never endured so much as a parchment cut, learning what its sting felt like for the very first time.

"Damn it," Raven hissed, and watched the inevitable come back up into the crowd, Fox parting people from each other like a drifting phantom.

When the veil fell away, he offered her the bloody arrowhead as a trophy. Somewhere high above, an announcer crowed, heralding the start of the match, and Raven was lost in a roar of screams and howls while raising the sharpened edge to her lips. Her tongue swept across a stray drop that threatened to fall, heady and dark, still hot from the vein.

Yet she tasted iron cold enough to numb her mouth, and knew the battle here had already been lost.

In weeks, the season would turn again.

\--


	3. Chapter 3

Raven was tracking a newly turned Unseelie across the endless plains of Winter’s southward lands, when her bloodstone warmed against the skin of her chest. The far-flung dawn was rising through the bare-faced trees, and the snowy earth was washed in a golden glow. The sun could do little to pierce the cold here, but still Raven’s hunting party strained towards the new morning light in the dim hope it would melt the frost from their bones. It didn’t.

Tugging at the reins of her mount, Raven raised a clenched fist to command a halt, the leather of her gloves creaking with frost. They all stopped. Coco jerked her head at the other three to join her a few paces away, giving Raven space to answer the call in private. Their voices lowered to murmurs, muffled by the fresh drift of snowfall. They were young, but so was their prey. Raven had been their age when she had felled her first Unseelie. They, too, would learn, or they would die.  

Raven’s breath misted in the air through the plates of her mask as she dug beneath layers of hide and fur for the strip of leather that bound the bloodstone around her neck. Her gloved hands were unwieldy in the cold. Finally, she pulled the bloodstone free. It was burning now, insistent as a coal even through cloth.

“What is it?” Raven asked, irritable.

Even now, she could see fresh tracks in the snow left by their reckless quarry. If they hurried, they could catch the Unseelie before he could become too powerful, too entrenched in his own Corruption.

For a moment, there was no response. Raven was about to snap at whoever had bothered her to not waste her time, when a voice spoke.

“At first light this morning, Silberne Schnee passed from this realm, long may he rest.”

It was Winter, the King’s eldest daughter and Heir. A cold deeper than any hiemal frost gripped Raven’s heart. The sun lanced over the distant treeline, casting knife-dark shadows across the snow. Raven’s own shadow stretched before her, a towering, faceless monolith looking to the horizon.

“Shit,” Raven muttered.

After a pause, Winter said, “I can still hear you, Caller.”

 _“Shit,”_ Raven repeated before she could stop herself. Then, she shook her head. “My apologies, Your Highness. You have my deepest condolences for your loss.”

“' _Your Majesty’,”_ Winter corrected her without missing a beat, her voice measured and even as ever. “And the loss is the world’s to bear, not merely mine.”

“You have no idea,” Raven sighed.

“Don’t I?” Winter asked, though she sounded as if her interest were piqued rather than as though she were angered by Raven’s impiety.

Raven motioned sharply at her troupe, gesturing for them to aboutface. She received raised palms and confused looks -- Fox and Coco motioning with their hands for Raven to tell them why they were turning back -- but she quelled their doubts with a dark look that even her bone mask could not conceal. “There is always more than meets the eye, Majesty. I can give you counsel upon my return. It should only take me the morning to see to -”

“That won’t be necessary,” Winter interrupted coolly. “Your first duty to attend to in such grievous circumstances is ensuring the other courts know of this loss. You need not stop at my court on your journey.”

Raven guided her mount around with her knees, but did not spur it forward to rejoin the others just yet. She stared down at the bloodstone clenched in her fist. Between her fingers, wisps of steam coiled from its black and glassy surface. The courts clung fast to tradition, and news of a Sovereign’s death must be dispensed by the Wild Hunt, but that did not mean Raven could not stop along the way. Even under the guises of paying her respects to deliver a few warnings to a young Queen.

Velvet was casting furtive looks over her shoulder towards Raven as they rode on ahead. Her long silky ears twitched in the cold. Raising the bloodstone closer to her mouth, Raven lowered her voice so that the other keen-eared Faunus members of her troupe could not hear. “You do not want to be entering this game blind, Your Majesty. No information offered to you in these precarious times should be taken lightly.”

“This is not a game,” came Winter’s reply. “See to your duties, Caller, and I’ll see to mine.”

The red light of the bloodstone went cold and dark. Biting back a curse, Raven gripped life into the stone once more. “Qrow,” she barked, not bothering to keep her voice down now.

No answer.

“Qrow, answer me!”

And still, silence.

Stuffing the stone back beneath her armour, where it pressed against her breastbone like a chip of ice, Raven spurred her mount forward to rejoin the others who had begun to forge ahead on her command. The four young Wildlings pretended they hadn’t been eavesdropping, giving her their best innocent looks, which Raven didn’t buy for a second.

“Change of plans,” Raven said. “We’re going to the Spring Court. Your first Grimm will have to wait. And does anyone know where my idiot brother sloped off to?”

“Do they have brothels this far south?” Fox asked wryly.

“If they did, I’m sure your father would have visited this way more often,” Raven countered.

Coco let out a snort of laughter, and Fox scowled as Yatsuhashi reached out with a fist to nudge his shoulder. It had taken them this long to make light of their parents’ shared fates, but Raven had hopes for them yet. A few more centuries, and they would be prime members of the Wild Hunt, a new generation she would be proud to have trained.

Velvet watched Raven with large solemn eyes. She fiddled with her own set of reins, and her sorrel horse pawed restlessly at the snow. “What happened?” she asked, and though her voice was soft it carried. They knew -- they must have known -- but still the others went quiet, turning their attention to Raven, waiting for her answer, waiting for her to intrust them with such information.

Reaching for her sword, Raven drew it in a single fluid motion. The blade’s edge hissed against its sheath. She sliced a portal in mid air, large enough for them to ride through one by one.

“The Winter King is dead,” she said, sheathing her sword. “Long live the Queen.”

\--

Even with Raven’s portals, it took them three days and two nights to travel to the lands of Spring. The distance she could travel each day was finite, tethered to the wellsprings of her own magic. The greater the distance and the larger the party moved, the greater the toll it took on her body. If augmented with Dust, Raven could push the limits of exhaustion and span the breadth of the world in a day, but by the end she would collapse into a fever that lasted a week. In times like these, it paid to throw caution to the winds and save her strength for greater battles.

With every leap through her portals, the lands would fade from white to new green growth. The distant mountaintops bristled with snow, but the hills around them were swept with grass. The cold lingered, but their hunting party rode hard. Each day, they would discard another layer of fur-lined cloaks as the weather warmed. Each night, Raven would hail Qrow on her bloodstone, only to be ignored.

By the time they arrived at the Spring court, Raven was fuming. At the vine-gripped gates, she leapt from her horse, tossed her reins to a waiting attendant, and stormed along the garden path towards the main hall. Without looking back or breaking her stride, she barked to the others, “Wait here! And don’t tell anyone anything!”

She did not turn to see if they obeyed her command. The lack of footsteps in her wake meant they had. Trees towered overhead, branching together to weave a living cathedral among the sky. Red-breasted birds flitted through the wooden vaults, and a few lazy bumblebees crawled among the flowers at Raven’s ankles. Courtiers meandered in small groups. Those that walked nearest her bowed their heads in respectful greeting as she passed. Raven did not return the gesture. She kept her face hidden behind its mask, thankful -- as she so often was -- for the way it concealed her expression.

Gripping the hilt of her sword until her gauntlets creaked, Raven stalked down a side corridor in the direction of the King’s private chambers. She pushed through another series of doors, winding her way through the organic layout of the Spring court, circles upon circles, winding ever inward towards the central chamber, where the eternal throne grew like the heart of a great tree.

As she rounded another corridor, she saw a familiar figure heading the opposite direction, coming right toward her. Qrow’s ragged half cape trailed from his shoulders as he walked.

“There you are,” Raven growled, continuing forward. “If I’d known you were going to tell Ozpin the news, I would have saved myself the trip and gone straight to Summer.”

Qrow’s steps slowed, and he cocked his head. Despite his usual airs of dismissive boredom, Raven could sense a disquiet about him. Something in the stiffness of his shoulders, the wariness of his gaze. “What news?” he asked.

Raven scoffed, drawing up to him and halting once they stood together. “What’s the fucking point of you having a bloodstone, if you never answer? No, I don’t want to hear your excuses. Just keep me abreast of your movements, so I can stop wasting my time. This is too important to wait.”

“Raven,” he said, holding up his hands as if to stem the tide of her words. “ _What news?”_

“What-? What _news?”_ she repeated incredulously. “Silberne is dead! And now I must ride to Summer’s court to tell her the news, since you’ve already delivered it to Spring. You get to inform Autumn,” Raven added in a dry tone. “Consider it penance for ignoring my hails and making me drag our young Wildlings halfway across the continent.”

Qrow’s face had gone pale, his eyes wide. “Silberne is-?”

He cut himself off before he could finish speaking, but it was too late. Raven went very still. She watched his expression flicker from shock to hard, grim silence, but no matter how much he tried, he could never conceal much from her for long.

“You didn’t know,” Raven began slowly. His mouth slanted into a narrow line, and he took a step back when she stepped forward, advancing upon him with growing understanding in her gaze, menace in her tone. _“You didn’t know._ And yet, here you are, heeling like a trained dog at Ozpin’s side.”

“Raven, it isn’t what you think--”

“How long?” Her voice dropped to a growl. The glow her eyes burned red between the slats of her bone mask. “How long have you been serving his interests instead of those of the Hunt? How long have you been his little Wildling pet? How long have you been feeding him information that he should not have?”

Qrow’s face darkened, but still he retreated as she bore down upon him. “Impartiality means nothing. Not when there’s a war all but simmering beneath the surface.”

“In this war, distributing impartial justice is all we have left!” Raven countered. “What are we if not arbiters of this chaos?”

“He is our father, Raven.”

Raven clenched her hands into fists rather than strangle the life from Qrow’s neck. “He abandoned us, and so many other bastards like us, the moment he knew of our existence! Spring has no claim on us! Nor our Autumn blood! We owe him nothing! No loyalty, no allegiance! _Nothing!”_

Something flashed across Qrow’s features, something flinty and sharp. He bared his teeth and snapped back, “You may be my Caller, but you will always be my sister first. Rank means nothing to me! Not when we never had the choice over our own fates!”

“And what? Given the choice, you would have picked Spring?” She waved a hand at their surroundings in disgust, the hallway blessedly devoid of any onlookers. “This place would never have you. Even if we had made that choice, the court would have rejected us from the very start!”

Qrow sneered, “Like your daughter?”

Rage seethed, writhing like a bed of snakes where her stomach should have been. Before she could stop herself, Raven had seized him by the throat. He reached for the hilt of his scythe over his shoulder, but she grabbed him by the wrist with her spare hand and squeezed. She could feel the grind of sinew and bone beneath her palm. With a grunt of pain, he twisted, trying to free himself from her grasp, his pulse a rabbit’s skitter leaping at her touch, but Raven’s power flared to life. The last dying spark of Spring inside her flashed bright and fuming, tendrils growing over Qrow’s feet and ankles, rooting him to the spot and dragging him down until he knelt upon the earth, awaiting her mercy.

Theirs was the blood of Kings. If it was a Sovereign he wanted, then it was a Sovereign she would give him.

“Go to Autumn. Tell Cinder the news,” Raven hissed with a voice low and soft like venom. “Try not to let slip any secrets. And when you’re done, I want you on Hunter’s duty in the South for the next century. If you step even one foot into a court -- any court -- during that time without my permission, I will have you tried for insubordination. We’ll see how quickly Ozpin leaps to your defense, then. How quickly he’ll speak of _impartiality._ ”

With a snarl, she released him. He gasped, clutching at his throat and slumping to all fours.  Turning, she stalked away.

“Raven,” she heard him call weakly after her, the sound a rasp. _“Raven!”_

She did not turn back.

\--

The news must be delivered. Her duty must be seen through to the very end, but the thought of talking to Ozpin now made her feel sick to her stomach. Teeth clenched, Raven strode briskly through the halls of Spring, searching for the only other person she could entrust with such information.

She found Goodwitch in the shaded gardens along the western courtyard. Here, a faint chill from the nearby stream filled the air with the scent of fresh growth, dew-clung moss and dappled stone. The Knight of Spring was conversing with her Page, a young fae with hair dark as night’s veil but for a bright streak of pink, like a violet growing at the edge of a valley. When she caught sight of Raven approaching, Glynda’s brow furrowed, and she dismissed her Page with a murmured, “That will be all, Ren. Go, now.”

He did not question her. With a deep bow, he went on his way, though he eyed Raven with a faint and distant curiosity as they crossed paths.

“Caller.” Glynda greeted Raven with a tilt of her head. “How can I be of assistance?”

Raven stopped in the shadow the tangled tree boughs, only as close to Glynda as she need be so that they were not overheard. “I am a bearer of bad news,” she began. Her hands were still tensed into fists from her recent encounter with Qrow, and it was only with great difficulty that Raven managed to unclench them.

Glynda’s eyebrows rose. She gestured to a bench along the courtyard wall that grew from the soil from living hardwood. “Would you like to sit? Your journey must have been long.”

A huff of bitter laughter escaped Raven. “Is that your way of telling me I look terrible, Ser?”

“I am not known as a mincer of words,” Glynda replied, and though her tone was dry her face was deadpan. “I am told it is polite to offer someone a seat when bad news is to be delivered. If you looked terrible, I would simply tell you.”

Raven gave a grunt of concession, but did not take the offered seat. Instead she straightened her shoulders and announced, “The King of Winter has passed from this life, and is succeeded by his Heir and Firstborn, long may she reign.”

Glynda inhaled sharply, but her face remained impassive. After a moment, she lowered her eyes to the ground and murmured, “Long may she reign, indeed.”

“A new generation is upon us, and the courts have a long road ahead. I only hope your King is prepared for the journey.”

At that, Glynda’s eyes snapped back up to Raven’s own, her face cold and guarded. “It is unlike you to place your hopes in any court, Caller, least of all my own. What has changed, I wonder?”

 _Everything_ , Raven did not say. It would do her no good. The world turned. Again and again, it turned, like a snake eating itself whole in a perpetual cycle. Always circling. She could only hope it would right itself again. With time, with effort, and with balance.

Finally, Raven said, “Ozpin needs loyal subjects now more than ever.”

Glynda lifted her chin. Beneath her mantle of rank, her amour glinted in a wayward slant of sunlight, silver and gold. “Loyalty is not easily commanded -- I know this better than most -- but rest assured he will always have mine.”

Raven did not answer. The darkness of her bone helm grew hot and stifling. Even in the cool shade of Spring, she felt as though she were suffocating, as though the fires were closing in all around them, and no one else could feel the flames stirring at their ankles.

With a resigned sigh, Glynda clasped her hands behind her back and turned to the stream. There, the water trickled through fern and stone. Though as always she held herself upright, there was a tired air about her. Dark shadows lingered beneath her eyes. “You brought me a letter once,” she began in a hushed tone. “From the Autumn Queen.”

Raven could feel her hackles rise just at the mention of Cinder. “I remember.”

“Do you know what it said?”

Raven shook her head.

Glynda hummed a low note in the back of her mouth. “Neither do I.” She glanced at Raven with a tilt of her head. “You seem shocked, Caller.”

“It is not my business,” Raven tried saying, but Glynda scoffed.

“While I admire your veneer of respect for my privacy, we both know that is -- as you’d say -- utter horse shit.” A cool breeze stirred the trees, and there followed a flutter of loose leaves from the branch. Not once did Glynda’s face shift, but her hands tightened their grip together at the small of her back. “A union between Spring and Autumn would be ruinous beyond compare. Much as I may have yearned for it, I could not -- _cannot_ \-- bind myself to Cinder in such a way. I burned her letter. Whatever twisted devotion she has for me now is no longer a concern for the fate of nations. At least, not in the way you might think.”

She faced away from Raven now, only the slope of her cheek and wheat-gold of her sternly bound hair visible.

“Ozpin is the oldest Sovereign among them now,” Raven said. “They will need guidance, lest Autumn triumph.”

Glynda fixed Raven with a long inscrutable stare, before saying in an iron-dark tone, “I will not be Queen, if that is what you are implying. I serve. This is my place. This is my purpose. I have no intention of changing that.”

Something tightly twined in Raven’s chest, some tense and trembling fear loosened. Relief swept through her, sudden and swift, like a breath of fresh air amidst flurries of smoke. “I know.” Shaking her head, Raven said, “I must spread the word.”

“Of course,” Glynda nodded, the movement crisp. “We all must cleave to our duties, now more than ever.”

Raven turned to stride away, then paused. With a last look over her shoulder, she said, “Take care of them, Glynda.”

The others, the young ones. It was the end of an era.

Glynda’s answering smile was sad. “Always.”

\--

Ruby was born amidst celebration. Hollow, hollow celebration.

Raven walked through Summer's court like a feral phantom, crushing dozens of petals underfoot. They may as well have been paper for all the life they carried, thrown by the thousands by nobles who in their hypocrisy, preferred a child one child fathered by a besmirched prince over another. Little did they know what burned through their Queen's blood, far more dire than an affair with the Wild.

There was a faint nervous thread through the proceedings; Summer had been secreted away for the last days of her pregnancy, concealed so resolutely that rumor spread she might have lost the child. When Taiyang carried out a girl with rose-silver eyes and her mother's blood-dark hair, the nobility breathed again, singing praise until it echoed through the sky. Soon they would mourn, and the truth would be buried with Summer.

Soon, Raven would see her daughter crowned, that lion of a girl she barely knew, branded with her lover's mark.

She wasn't supposed to be here. No, she should have been far away on any other errand for the Hunt, so no one could ever draw the lines between her presence and Yang's lineage. Yet the time for _should_ was long past; Qrow should have trusted her, Taiyang should have trusted her, Summer should have--

Glynda had, at least. That was the only saving grace in this slow collapse, with Cinder waiting in the wings to feast on the corpses of every monarch that fell before her. Winter was a lost cause in Raven's eyes; both Court and Heir would hold no sway while Autumn flourished and Spring held onto its last few roots.

For a moment, she imagined Yang facing Cinder, and saw a new fire smothered by ash, choking until the world was awash in grey.

Raven bit her tongue, hard enough for it to hurt, and kept walking. The closer she came to the palace, the stronger the smell of roses became, enough to cover the sweat and gore of birth, enough to cover the rot in Summer's throne. A few drunken nobles passed her by without so much as a second glance, too deep in their cups to regard her presence as more than a dark blur.

"Long live the Queen!" One of them cried out, raising a toast to the absent air. "May she reign forever!"

It took every ounce of restraint Raven had not to throttle the man, not to drive a blade into his gut and twist it. Perhaps he would value his life then, as it drained out upon her knife and colored the earth below in summer's shade, in Summer's--Raven's hands clenched into fists so tight that her knuckles popped, pressure grinding bone like a whetstone.

At last she reached the royal quarter, where the festivities were beginning to fade. She spotted golden hair in the distance and made to approach Taiyang, only to freeze as it spilled down in waves, farther than he had ever let it grow. The girl standing there was already of a height, with sharp features and violet eyes, the lithe muscle of youth emerging from narrow shoulders, from calves that knew court floors better than the back of a horse. Summer's mark was emblazoned crimson on the inside of Yang's arm, bared at all times to remind those around her what she was bid to inherit.

What she would carry, long before anyone expected her to.

Raven swallowed past the bile on her tongue, leaden and thick. Yang wasn't alone; a stocky girl with feathered orange hair stood in her shadow, the position of a bodyguard. She was unarmored--at the moment--but Raven knew the look of a royal protector when she saw one, Dust hanging like lightning in the aura around her. At least her concerns about an outcry had been taken seriously; if a noble lashed out to try and kill Yang before she became sovereign, someone was there to catch the blade.

"Why can't I see her yet?" Yang muttered, her voice different than Raven expected, booming and clear. "Everyone got to see my sister and my mother, then they were just swept out of sight..."

"They'll be back," the guard replied, offering a smile. "It's a bad omen for new royal children to cry in public, you know."

Yang's rasping scoff reminded Raven far too much of herself. "Really, Nora? Ruby was just born, she doesn't know how to do anything _but_ cry."

Chances were, Taiyang and Summer were saying their goodbyes. Yang couldn't know, couldn't have any idea of what was to come. Through the slits of her mask, Raven stood there and watched her daughter as long as she could bear it.

Not long enough. What was the use of living so many centuries when no one else had enough time, when everything was so close to unraveling?

Ravens' chest ached like a spear had pierced it, and she turned away, leaving the open quarter to delve into the palace instead. She knew the way to Summer's rooms, and walked in complete silence, ignoring the servants who cast a wary glance her way. They had seen her here before, been counseled against complaints.

She found Taiyang first. He was outside Summer's door, face sunken with grief. Tears spilled down his face as he looked off down the other hall, like there was an answer waiting there.

"Is the girl in there with her?" Raven asked, and Taiyang startled, looking at her like a haunting beast.

He wasn't wrong, not by much.

"You're really here to see it through?" Taiyang accused, roughly wiping at the signs of his sorrow. It didn't do much. "You couldn't just let this happen?"

"Do you think I want her dead?" She bared her teeth with the words, anger blooming in the empty space between her heart and everything else. "Do you think I wouldn't change it if I could?"

Something in him snapped, pain wearing away that final thread. "What good are you, if you can't save her?"

"I'm not good at all." Raven would have laughed; could have, if her eyes weren't burning with unspent tears. "I never have been, Taiyang. That's not what I'm here for."

"No, you're here to do your duty," he snarled.

She wasn't. "I'm here to say goodbye. I loved her too, you spoiled prince."

 _Loved_. Raven had uttered the past tense without thinking, used a word she'd spent a lifetime thinking she had no use for. It was impossible to look Taiyang in the eyes, but she was choking on the truth, seized by such outrage that the only thing Raven could think to do was tear off her mask, breathing hard as cool air touched her face.

"Raven." Oh, now he pitied her, now he saw that vulnerable facet she hadn't let show since that Beltane night, and she would have throttled Taiyang if it wouldn't have been one of the last things Summer might see. "I'm sorry."

"Shut up," she spat. "Just get out of my way."

By some mercy he did, and without another word. Raven entered Summer's bedroom as quietly as she could, drawing the door shut with equal grace. The queen herself sat by the largest window, the curtains tied open; there was no point in hiding now, not truly. A black swaddle of blankets was in her arms, and as Raven approached, she could see a small tuft of dark hair peeking out through a gap in the cloth, a pale and sleeping face underneath it.

Ruby wouldn't remember how her mother looked in this moment; she was too young.

"Raven." Summer looked up, and she felt the weight of centuries. "I didn't think I would see you so soon."

"Were you planning to wait, just to make me show up?" It was meant to be a joke, a tease, something lighter than the world crushing them both, but the words came out jagged, a dozen pieces of obsidian trapped in Raven's throat.

"I considered it," Summer admitted with a smile, "but honestly, the pain is almost unbearable at this point."

The agony didn't show, but it wouldn't. Summer was a sovereign, born and bred, and had a strength inside her that would never bend nor break, not until the corruption swallowed the last of it whole.

"She's so beautiful, isn't she?" With gentle fingers, Summer drew the edge of the blanket back to stroke at Ruby's cheek. "Yang stayed through the whole birth. I'm proud of her."

Raven wanted to be proud of her daughter too. She wanted to be, but it would have been cruel to claim such a thing when the girl was about to suffer so. It wasn't a good thing; it was only inevitable.

"I saw her, a moment ago," Raven confessed quietly. "She'll be taller than her father, soon enough."

Summer nodded, smiling still. She rose to her feet, passing by Raven to the door. When she opened it, Taiyang was waiting there. Raven could scarcely watch as the two of them kissed, exchanging words too soft for her to hear. Taiyang took Ruby in his arms and left, walking down the hall towards the open royal quarter. He would need an alibi, or there would be no one left to raise Ruby but a sister in mourning.

The door was closed again, sealing them both inside. Summer's cloak brushed Raven's arm like a wraith when she passed, walking to her desk. Inside its bottom drawer was the vial of poison, and Raven's fingers twitched at her sides. For one feral, desperate instant, everything inside her wanted to shatter it. She would fight death itself for Summer to live, but there was no form nor flesh to sink her blade into; there was only the truth, made fit to ruin them both.

"You don't have to do it that way if you don't want to," Raven managed to choke out, and Summer turned to face her. One silver eye remained, but the shine there was tarnished, soon to fade fast. "I could use my blade."

Summer smiled, all-knowing and yet so very mortal. "And have my Court and every other seeking an assassin? Your magic isn't impossible to track, Raven, not by another Sovereign."

The queen raised the vial up to the light, and Raven wondered how much Summer could actually see at this point. She turned the carved crystal back and forth, peering at the clear liquid as if it had some wisdom left to offer.

"A drink of this, and then a day?" Summer asked.

"Hours, I'd think." There was no point in lying, not now. "Swallow every drop, then lay down to sleep."

"I won't sleep." Her laugh was like falling leaves, a distant echo of sound. "Will you stay, Raven? Will you please stay?"

It was foolish. Everything about this had been from the beginning.

"Of course I'll stay," she whispered, and paid no mind to the faint hint of rot and blood on Summer's mouth when they kissed.

The vial was emptied after. In a cradle of darkness, Raven held her queen close, counting heartbeats until they began to slow.

\--

It wasn't supposed to rain during summer funerals.

Thick drops pelted down on the royal guard as they marched in lockstep, the crimson of their cloaks sodden and dark. The procession was slow by nature, but the weather made it a particular performance of misery; glowing Dust crystals warded the water away from Summer's rosewood casket, but only just. Every so often, a sob or cry would break out over the relentless torrent cast down by the sky, only to be muffled by the next shuffle of armor and heavy boots.

The other Sovereigns were in palanquins with their curtains open. Beneath a rack of ebony and silver, Ozpin lead as the first of four, with Glynda and Ren riding on steeds in front of the bearers, their faces draped in white veils of mourning and obscured from view. Raven knew the Knight by her symbol of inheritance, and there was no mistaking the man who followed in her shadow, not when they moved like a symbiotic pair. Sparks of Spring magic arose under aligned hooves, calling for rebirth and new life.

Their eyes never met. That was for the best, probably.

Yang, newly crowned, followed in Summer's litter--and it had been _hers_ , just days before--but the silence around the palanquin spoke to dread. A caretaker knelt beside Yang, holding Ruby in her arms, and Nora stood at the young queen's left, a hand resting on one tense shoulder. They were all cast in red, threads dyed to speak of life's blood when it spilled. Raven swallowed roughly; it didn't suit Yang in the least.

Her daughter ruled the Summer Court. No matter how many times she ran the words over in her head, they failed to find footing. Grief cast a long shadow on Yang's face, the same grief that threatened to burst from Raven's chest whenever she forced herself to look at the casket--at Summer.

Ten thousand rumors had made rounds through the court, but no healer--Summerborn or otherwise--could condemn the queen's death to anything but sickness. It gave the Court's sorrow a certain edge; so many stories were told of the battles Summer endured with a smile, paying no mind to the danger she was put in as long as her people were safe. They were shocked, to be sure, but the whispers were of a generous ruler, one who didn't want her subjects to suffer before she passed.

Raven thought of the poison tucked into a vial at her hip, and was hard-pressed not to vomit on the spot.

Spying Cinder held aloft by a dozen Faunus in armor didn't ease the feeling. One of them, with black hair, Raven recognized--Blake.

Autumn was ablaze with power, even here. Steam hissed and popped in opaque clouds around the palanquin each time a drop of rain came near, dousing attendants and watchers in a wave of fog. With her feet in stirrups, Raven could peer over the vapor, and didn't miss how Cinder's mourning wear resembled her old hunting gear, feigning deference while the mask of an arrogant predator lay across her face. There was no artifice, only flesh, and the glow of golden eyes that dared straight forward, cutting through the back of the Summer palanquin like a blade.

"I recognize those two," Fox said under his breath beside Raven, just loud enough for the two of them to hear. "Riding in front."

"Who are they?" she asked, just as quiet.

He frowned, the milky countenance of his eyes betraying tension. "Mercury and Emerald. They were fighters down in the pit with the Ironblooded."

Pyrrha herself stood at the guard's place by Cinder's side, but compared to her Sovereign, the warrior's face was wounded with sympathy. She looked in the exact same direction, at Yang's back, and seemed somehow tortured.

Perhaps there was a thread there to be pulled.

Winter followed last, a rime of ice lining roof and wall alike. It cracked and snapped like dry twigs, splintering under the rain, only to be made anew again by force of will. Such a show was unnecessary, especially for a young queen, but she was not the youngest now, and Raven could only shake her head. It would not be long before Winter fell, she knew, and squinted to make out the princess who stood beside the frost-laden throne. Weiss looked like one of her Court's spectres, pale and thin, and the blade at her side was ceremonial.

Who knew where their allegiances lay? Perhaps Winter would conspire with Autumn, perhaps Cinder already had enough power to take each and every court for her own. She would rip the balance from the world, feast on it down to the marrow.

Glynda was prepared, at least. Raven almost bit her tongue at the irony; she didn't have to wonder if Cinder would sink to destroying the woman she loved--the attempt felt inevitable.

"I'm going to go say my goodbyes," she announced aloud, and the rest of the Hunt stilled. "Don't make fools of yourselves while I'm gone."

Riding in pace with Summer's casket for hours on end, Raven felt separated from herself. She watched the ceremonies, took in empty words, and waited for the moment that the damned wooden box would be sat on its plinth, deep in the Summer Court's house of honor.

It was, finally, when the sun fell. She cut a portal through old stone after the guard marched away, and knelt before what was left of Summer. Tears didn't rise at first; Raven was too numb.

"I should have known I would find you here," a sharp voice cut in front behind her.

Turning like a cornered hound, Raven reached for the hilt of her sword. Cinder stood under a stone arch, at an almost respectful distance.

"Why are _you_ here?" Raven snapped, teeth bared.

"Because I wonder what I'm missing," Cinder replied, tilting her head in predatory contemplation. "What sickness takes a Sovereign?"

"I would ask the same thing, but there's no cure for what you have." Reaching deep into her pocket, Raven pulled out the bracelet of feathers, one of the narrow glass ornaments cracked through centuries before. "Is there?"

The hiss of breath between Cinder's teeth was all too satisfying--a second's fear, that her mother's fate might be her own.

Raven wondered if the same terror would ever come to Yang.

She offered the bracelet to the Autumn Queen in one palm, the other still resting against her blade. "Here."

Cinder's sneer was razor-sharp. "I thought that was your trophy, Caller."

"It is. But it's also a promise." With a step forward, Raven broke the distance between them, and dropped the bracelet into Cinder's hand, half-curled like a claw. "I know what you have wrought, and I will undo it, piece by piece."

The sneer faded in an instant, replaced by a smile. "Oh, dear Raven. You can't."

Yet the seasons bid to turn. Her life was defined by it, that change and loss was inevitable. Growth would spring from ash, and the new blood flowing through the Courts would find its purpose. They would be champions, even though they were so young.

Raven smiled too. "Remember that, your Majesty. When the time comes."

She walked away, because there was only one path ahead. There was no other fate in the Wild Hunt but leaving, forever unchained.

One day, she would come back to Summer, and answer for all she had done.

\--

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Tiger, Burning (The Iokheaira Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14923382) by [ehmazing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ehmazing/pseuds/ehmazing)




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